


Yuuri and the White Bear

by poodlesandsucculents



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Animal Transformation, Eventual Otabek Altin/Yuri Plisetsky, Fairy Tale Curses, Light Angst, Long-Haired Victor Nikiforov, M/M, Magic, Marriage of Convenience, Mutual Pining, Romantic Fluff, Shapeshifting, Sharing a Bed, Temporary Amnesia, Victor Nikiforov Has a Terrible Family, Yuri Plisetsky's Nickname Is Yurio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-08-07 15:49:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16411397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poodlesandsucculents/pseuds/poodlesandsucculents
Summary: As a boy, Prince Yuuri imagined that the only person he could ever marry was Victor Tsarevich, the magician prince of the distant Nikiforovan Empire. But Victor died before his 18th birthday, and seven years later a giant bear saves Yuuri’s life, then requests his hand in marriage as repayment. The mysterious Vitya (part-time bear / cursed magician) needs a handsome prince to break his spell; Yuuri (handsome prince / part-time magician) wants to learn more magic, and so they come to an arrangement.(An AU inspired by “East o’ the Sun and West o’ the Moon” and all my other favorite Monster Bridegroom/Missing Husband fairy tales)





	1. Chapter 1

When Prince Yuuri of Hasetsu first saw Victor Tsarevich, he was accompanying his family to the royal wedding of the Tsarina to her new consort. Her son, only twelve years of age, fidgeted throughout the ceremony and banquet afterward, until the dessert course was served, and the Tsarina’s herald called him forward to perform a feat of magic for the guests. Murmurs rippled through the hall as Victor made his way to the center and stopped precisely before his mother and new stepfather.

Victor bowed, then raised one slender arm in the air in a soft, graceful movement and everyone gasped as the air filled with blue roses that floated down from the hall’s ceiling to hang suspended in the air above them. Victor raised his other arm and bright points of white light appeared among the roses. At his gesture, the lights flitted and danced between the flowers, casting the whole hall awash in dazzling, shifting spots of color.

Yuuri stared open-mouthed at the display, his heart pounding with a thrill he’d never felt before. He looked down from the lights to the boy standing below them, the prince’s face lit with a joy that Yuuri had not seen in him until that moment.

 _I want this_ , Yuuri thought to himself. _I want to make magic, too. I want to be just like him._

Victor lowered his arms, the lights faded, and the flowers resumed their slow, dreamy descent to the floor, some even landing on the tables among the plates and goblets. Yuuri stretched out to catch one, but it was too far away, and his sister tugged him back into his seat. Yuuri cast his eyes downward, feeling hot, stupid tears of frustration rising in his eyes. He just wished he could have one of the flowers to take home, a keepsake from what now seemed to be the most significant event of his life.

Then Mari nudged him. “Yuuri,” she whispered urgently. “The Prince.”

Yuuri looked up, and Victor was right there, standing across the table from him. With a little flourish and a little smile, he produced another blue rose from thin air--this one on a long stem, and presented it.

“For me?” Yuuri asked.

“For you, Your Highness,” said Victor. Up close, his eyes shone the same blue as the roses.

Yuuri took it carefully, avoiding the thorns and the other boy’s fingers. “Th--thank you, Your Highness,” Yuuri said.

“You’re welcome!” Victor said brightly. “Thank you to you and your family for attending my mother’s wedding,” he added, with a slight bow to Mari and their parents.

They gave a polite response, but Yuuri was no longer listening. He ran his fingers over the flower’s soft petals, and tried to gather the courage to ask Victor how he did it--if he would teach him--but by the time he looked up again, the boy had returned to the high table beside his mother once more.

 

Yuuri carried the rose with him all the way home, and the color of the petals did not fade.

Yuuri went to the royal gardener and asked her for a pot and some soil. He brought it back to his room and stuck the rose down in the dark earth, and waited.

Two weeks later, Yuuri spotted a new shoot coming up from the base of the rose’s stem.

When the rose began to outgrow its pot, Yuuri showed it to the gardener, and asked for a bigger one. When the rose outgrew that, the gardener offered to plant it outside Yuuri’s window, so he could still look at it every day. Though he hated to give up the rose’s beloved place in his room, Yuuri agreed.

He brought blooms in now and then and floated them in bowls of water on his desk, but they did not have the same extraordinary properties as the first, and faded and dried like any ordinary flower.

 

One day, months later, Yuuri found their court magician Minako contemplating his rose bush.

“Prince Victor made this?” Minako asked him as he approached.

Yuuri nodded.

“That’s sophisticated magic for a little kid.”

“Prince Victor is amazing,” Yuuri said, and Minako laughed. “Lady Minako, could you make something like this?”

Minako shrugged. “Sure.”

“Could you teach me how?”

Minako looked at him sharply. “You want to learn magic?”

“Like Prince Victor,” Yuuri said.

“Well it’s a little unorthodox,” Minako said. “I can’t believe the Tsarina allows it; I always thought that court seemed so uptight back in the day.”

“Have you seen it?” Yuuri asked.

“I used to travel all over the world before I came back here to be your parents’ magician,” Minako said. “I met the Tsarina when she was still married to the Prince’s father. She was gracious enough, and even made me an offer to join Yakov in their service, but of all the places I saw, I still think the Katsuki Court is the most fun.”

“So--can you teach me to make roses?”

Minako shook her head and gave Yuuri a quirk of a smile. “No distracting you, is there? Well I won’t teach you a thing without your parents’ permission, so let’s go ask.” She took Yuuri’s hand, and off they went.

Upon hearing their younger child’s request, the King and Queen thought it was a fine idea, and so Prince Yuuri began joining Minako’s afternoon lessons with her apprentices Yuuko and Takeshi. Yuuri had a lot of catching up to do, as the other two were older than he, and had already studied under Minako for two years. Yuuri, however, dedicated himself to the practice of magic as if he was the apprentice. He wandered through the castle conjuring tiny points of light between his hands, until the lights grew stronger, bigger, lasted longer, and Yuuri at last began to be able to shape them into objects. As he grew older, Yuuri began to borrow the books in Minako’s library and learned all that had been written on magic in his native tongue. He forged ahead in learning foreign languages from his other tutors so that he could one day read the rest.

It took three years, but at last there came a day that Yuuri sat in Minako’s study one evening long after Yuuko and Takeshi had taken off for the night, and as Minako sipped wine and perused a novel, Yuuri took a deep breath from his heart, and conjured into existence a single, brilliant blue rose. Slowly, he let the petals unfurl until it opened wide in his hand, and it was real, not just an illusion. It smelled like a rose and it felt like a rose and Yuuri leapt to his feet and dashed out the door, paying no heed to Minako’s “Huh?” as she looked up from her book. Yuuri ran to the rose bush he’d grown from Victor’s gift, and held up his own beside it.

Soon, Minako joined him. “You really did it, kid,” she smiled. “Good work.”

 

A messenger delivered the news of Prince Victor’s death not long after Yuuri’s fourteenth birthday. Yuuri dropped his pen and fled the study where he had been helping his sister. He ran through the halls of the castle to his chambers, and threw open his bedroom window in spite of the chill air. In the nine years of its life, the rose bush had grown so tall that its highest branches were now on a level with Yuuri’s windowsill. Yuuri looked at the roses, still blooming and miraculous. Upon hearing the messenger’s words, he had been seized by a fear that the flowers would die without Victor’s magic out in the world somewhere sustaining it, and thought that a withered skeleton might be all that remained. But of course Victor hadn’t just died today. It was two weeks ago now, the messenger had said--an accident, thrown from his horse. And yet, the roses lived on, healthy as ever.

Yuuri plucked one and pressed it to his face, nose buried in the soft petals and scent. Maybe Victor’s magic had worn off years ago, and it was Yuuri’s that now kept the flowers growing and blooming. Once, that idea might have filled him with pride, but now it was painful to think that Victor might be gone even from the roses. Yuuri sat on the edge of his bed and cradled the rose in his hands as he wept.

There came a light knock on his door, and Minako entered without waiting for his response.

“Hey kid,” she said. She brushed her fingers through his hair once, then sat down on a chair beside his bed. “I know Prince Victor meant a lot to you.”

Yuuri shook his head. “It’s stupid, isn’t it? I didn’t know him at all. I just--” He brushed his thumb over the petals. “--he gave me the roses.”

“I know,” Minako said. “I understand.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [(As I hope was clear by the lack of archive warnings, Yuuri is not operating on 100% factual information at this time.)](https://y.yarn.co/c659cf22-aa9c-4658-b14f-26bbe4d6e92f_text_hi.gif)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> minor content warning: this chapter contains some brief violence and the death of a couple unnamed humans and animals

Yuuri came of age at twenty-one, and had yet to find interest in any eligible suitors. The crown princess, always looking for ways to bring her little brother out of his fits of gloom and nerves, thought it might be a fine idea to begin sending Yuuri off as an ambassador to foreign courts, as traveling alone might help build up his confidence, and meeting new people might bring him to a soul that matched his own. Yuuri was not opposed to the proposition, and so, cherishing hope in his heart, he packed up a trunk. In the company of two royal guards, he set out to visit their closest neighbor, whose king, Mari had noted casually, was charming, young, handsome, and unwed.

Yuuri’s gut twisted when he first entered King Phichit’s throne room, and found himself adjusting his spectacles every other second, but the king approached him at once, brushing off all Yuuri’s attempts at deference.

“Prince Yuuri!” the young king exclaimed with a beaming smile. “I am so honored you chose to visit our kingdom! Would you care to rest from your journey, or may I give you a tour of the palace straightaway?”

“Oh!” Yuuri said. “No, I would like to see more of the palace. That is, unless you are busy?”

“Hardly!” Phichit laughed. He leaned close to Yuuri and gestured back at his advisors, whispering, “They have me studying law books and accounts all the day long. I know a king has to understand these things to run his kingdom, but he also needs a break now and then, don’t you think? I can’t say how glad I am to have an excuse to duck out of it for a while.”

Phichit’s eager gaiety put Yuuri at ease, and he found himself laughing and smiling, all anxiousness dissipating like mist in the sun. His heart fluttered with maybes during their first day together, as Phichit gave Yuuri a tour of the palace and the capitol and shone with pride as he told tales of his kingdom’s history. Yuuri delighted him in return by conjuring flowers and making them turn different colors at Phichit’s request, and he went to bed stunned by the breadth of Mari’s wisdom.

In the following days, however, Yuuri discovered that he had perhaps leapt too quickly to a conclusion on their romantic compatibility. The boundless enthusiasm that had helped Yuuri forget his nerves that first day turned out to be Phichit’s permanent state of being, and as much as Yuuri genuinely enjoyed his company, he began to find that he did also tire of it, not because it was unpleasant but simply because it was tiring. Yuuri did not have the emotional energy to match Phichit’s and he despaired of ever being able to keep up with him day in and day out. It almost broke his heart, because otherwise Phichit was one of the kindest and best people Yuuri had ever met. But Yuuri did not believe he desired a partner who, for all his charms, made Yuuri often feel he needed to go sit alone in a dark room to recover from a few hours in his unreserved company. Neither did Yuuri believe that Phichit deserved a husband with a spirit that could not match his own, and so he set aside the prospect of marriage, and simply felt grateful to have made such an excellent new friend.

 

On Yuuri’s last night, he and Phichit sat in the king’s chambers playing Mak-yek. Phichit had been trying to teach Yuuri the game with great patience and his characteristic good humor, but Yuuri had yet to win a single game.

“You know,” Phichit said, capturing two of Yuuri’s pieces at once, “I believe our families had hoped the two of us would fall in love in the past several months.”

Yuuri tensed, but Phichit offered him a kind smile.

“Yuuri,” he said, “I like you a lot and I’m so glad to have met you. I hope we can remain friends, and I will try to visit you in Hasetsu sometime. But I don’t think we are quite suited to each other in the other way, do you?”

Yuuri breathed a sigh of relief that made Phichit laugh. “No,” Yuuri said, “I--I was thinking the same thing. You’re a very good man, Your Majesty. I’m sure you will find the right partner someday.”

“Likewise,” Phichit grinned at him.

 

On the return journey, Yuuri was preoccupied with rehearsing the excuses and apologies he would make to his family for not returning to them betrothed to a king, and so when a slavering, knife-toothed beast leapt from the shadow of the trees and knocked one of his guards directly from his horse, it took him several seconds too long to react, and in that time two more of the creatures had come sprinting from somewhere deep in the woods, and set upon the whole party. Their packhorse, reacting quicker than Yuuri had, bolted; the second guard struck gamely at the creatures with his sword, but was soon pulled down, and his horse with him. Yuuri felt paralyzed--he knew he should be doing something, some magic to save them, but his heart was racing and every breath felt like a knife to his lungs and then he felt knives in his leg, and before he knew it he was pulled from his saddle while his horse fled in terror. 

The large, cat-like creature that had attacked him raised a paw to strike his face and Yuuri screwed his eyes shut, but the blow never came. Instead, Yuuri heard a soft whump and a yelp, the terrible cats hissed and yowled, and Yuuri opened his eyes. At first his vision blurred with tears, but as he blinked them away and tried to sit up, he saw around him two dead horses, two dead guards, three dead terrible cat things, and one very large, very alive bear.

The bear was as strange to look upon as the mysterious cat beasts, and a bear only by shape, as it was nothing like any bear Yuuri had ever seen. It was massive, nearly as large as a draft horse, and its coat was a pure and brilliant white. It turned to look Yuuri in the eye, and as it lumbered in his direction, the terrible cats faded from existence. Yuuri’s heart was still racing, his breaths still coming hard, and it could easily have been his fancy that the bear opened its mouth and said, “You need to slow your breaths.”

“I can’t,” said Yuuri peevishly, deciding that if he had gone truly mad there was no harm in talking to this figment of his imagination.

“Sure you can,” said the bear, and put a large, heavy paw on Yuuri’s chest. “In,” it said, and then lifted the paw just a little.

It's not that easy, Yuuri wanted to say. Not quite sure why any of this was happening, he obeyed, and his chest rose to meet the bear’s paw. To his surprise, he could already feel his pulse slowing.

“Out,” said the bear, pushing down just lightly.

Yuuri breathed out. There was a fuzzy feeling in his chest he recognized as a symptom of magical influence--the bear exuded some power capable of regulating his very heart. To attempt such an intimate control of another human’s body was something Yuuri had always shied from. Minako warned him it was very dangerous, and should only be attempted in the gravest emergencies, as without years of careful practice you were just as likely to harm the person further. That the bear used such a power with such confidence and nonchalance made Yuuri afraid. They repeated this strange exercise for several more breaths, until Yuuri began to breathe more naturally.

“Don’t be afraid,” the bear’s voice rumbled. “You’re safe now.”

Yuuri slowly rose up on his elbows, his eyes on the bear, and then looked at his own leg. In the adrenaline of the attack he had sort of forgotten it had been mauled by the cat creature, but now he could see and feel how very badly he was hurt.

The bear placed a paw on it, and Yuuri cried out, but then the pain was suddenly gone, the blood washed away. His leg was entirely whole again.

Yuuri scrambled to his feet. He felt completely overwhelmed by everything that had just happened and couldn’t get his brain to go any further than thinking about how he’d lost his horse and all his possessions, his guards and their horses had been killed while he did nothing to stop it, and on top of that he had failed once more to find any romantic spark with a perfectly nice suitor. Yuuri hugged his arms around himself and tucked his chin to his chest as he strove not to cry. His spectacles slipped off his nose, then stopped dead in midair. Then floated back to slide gently onto his face once more.

“Please don’t cry,” the bear said. “I won’t hurt you.”

Yuuri stopped, trying to gather himself back into the here and now. The bear wore a small leather pouch around its neck, which struck Yuuri as particularly strange, given that its paw could not possibly fit inside to take anything out of it, if it even had the dexterity to do so in the first place. “What are you?”

The bear blinked at him.

“Are you a spirit of the forest?”

The bear snorted through its large black nose. “I assure you that whatever I am, it is far less dignified than that.”

“Oh,” said Yuuri. “Well I just--I’ve never seen magic like that before. Where did you learn it?”

The bear tilted its head. “Why are you so curious?”

“I--well, I’ve studied magic, myself, a little, well, quite a lot actually, but I--I feel like this is new. Even our court magician does not use magic so easily.”

The bear bared its teeth, and Yuuri feared he had said the wrong thing. “If you are such a great magician, perhaps I should have let you rescue yourself.”

“Oh, no, I’m not--I never said I was a great magician, I’m nothing much, really, I--I’m not great under pressure, and when those things attacked I just--I didn’t know what to do, and this--this whole trip has been a disaster, my family will be so disappointed, I--” Yuuri stopped himself, breathed. “I--what I’m trying to say is, the rescuing was--appreciated. I appreciate it. You. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” said the bear, and Yuuri felt like there was a note of amusement in its voice.

“Sorry, sorry,” said Yuuri, shaking his head. “I’m just--those things, I’m still a little shaken up I guess. What were they--do you know? Why did they disappear when you um, killed them?”

“Something evil,” the bear growled. “Made by a powerful and wicked magic. They disappeared because they were never real in the first place, like you or I. Just a magical projection.”

Yuuri’s stomach turned as he looked at the carnage the things had left behind. “I--” he said, “I can’t--the bodies. I can’t leave them, but I don’t know how I can take them back with me.”

“Where is home?” the bear asked.

“Hasetsu,” Yuuri said. “It’s just a couple hours to the east, on the coast.”

“Here,” the bear said, and with a wave of its paw the bodies of the guards were wrapped in caskets of glass. “Nothing will touch them until you can return with the means to carry them to their families.”

Magic. Yuuri’s use of magic so far had been half art, half experiment--he hadn’t ever thought of using it for more practical purposes, and he felt embarrassed that this strange creature kept thinking of things before he did. Surreptitiously, he brushed his hand over his trouser leg and mended the tears made during his mauling. “Sorry,” Yuuri said again, unsure what for, and walked past the bear and down the path, until he was well away from the corpses. The bear followed.

“That’s alright,” said the bear. “What is your name?”

“Yuuri. My name is Yuuri.”

“Yuuri.” His name sounded weirdly beautiful in the bear’s deep rumble, and Yuuri turned back to face him. “Isn’t that the name of your prince?”

“Oh! Well, it is the prince’s name. It’s my name. I’m--I’m the prince, I mean. I’m so sorry--I should have introduced myself.”

The bear’s ears twitched, and its eyes searched Yuuri’s face. He felt a little uncomfortable, and wondered if revealing his identity was a mistake. Of course it was a mistake. What was he doing, trusting a giant, magic bear he just met in the woods? It could take him hostage, it could take over the kingdom, it--

“Your Highness.” The bear lowered its head in a deep bow. “Please forgive me my impertinence. I did not recognize you.”

Yuuri wasn’t sure what to make of this. “Well, to be fair, you do not have the accent of this kingdom, so you have no reason to know my face. I--I confess I am a little confused at you having an accent at all, I’ve--never met a talking bear before.”

“We are thankfully rare, Your Highness.”

“Oh--okay.” Yuuri wasn’t sure what else to say to such an odd statement.

“I’ve never met a magician prince before.”

“We’re--also rare.” Yuuri smiled a little.

“Would you show me your magic?”

“Show you?” said Yuuri in astonishment. “I--what would you like me to do? I did fix my trousers...”

“Show me whatever magic you like best,” the bear rumbled.

 _Whatever magic I like best_ , Yuuri thought. Simple though it was, there was no contest over what magic he liked best. Not entirely sure why he was taking requests from a giant bear, Yuuri held out his hand, and conjured into existence a single, blue rose that glowed with an inner light.

The bear’s jaw fell open and it stared at the rose entranced, as if the blue flower were the most remarkable thing it had ever seen. “Where did you learn to make such a thing?”

Yuuri gave a sad smile. “The only other magician prince I know of.” Yuuri looked down at the rose in his hand. “Prince Victor, of Nikiforova.”

“Isn’t he dead,” the bear said after a long silence.

Yuuri nodded. “I--I only saw him once. I was a child, and my family had traveled to the Nikiforovan Court to see the Tsarina’s second wedding. He--Prince Victor, he showed his magic to the court at the wedding feast. He filled the air with the blue roses, and I thought I’d never seen anything so beautiful in my life. I knew then that I wanted to do magic, too. I wanted to make roses like that some day.”

“It is very beautiful,” the bear said. 

Yuuri sighed, and made the rose disappear once more.

“I should not detain you,” the bear said. “You were on your way back home to your castle, I take it?”

“Y-yes, I--oh dear, I don’t know how I’m going to get home. My horse must be miles away by now.” Yuuri felt like crumpling in on himself all over again. This whole journey was such a complete disaster--

“Allow me.”

“I--” Yuuri stared at the bear. “I beg your pardon?”

“You have no horse. I can carry you. Only tell me where to go and I will see you home safe.”

“Oh, you don’t need to do that,” Yuuri said.

“Your Highness,” the bear said. “It would be an honor.”

Yuuri looked at him. “You are very kind.”

The bear said nothing.

“And I am very rude,” Yuuri added. “Here you are offering me yet more aid and I haven’t bothered to ask your own name!”

“Vitya,” said the bear. “You may call me Vitya.”

“Vitya,” Yuuri repeated.

The bear lay down flat on the ground, and stared at him.

Yuuri realized that he was meant to climb on its back. “Vitya’s” back. “You’re sure about this?” he asked.

“I am,” Vitya said.

Cautiously, Yuuri came closer, and clambered up to sit behind the bear’s massive shoulders. “Is this uncomfortable?” Yuuri asked.

“Not at all, Your Highness,” Vitya said, and rose to his feet.

Yuuri lurched every which way and made a very undignified noise as he grasped the bear’s thick fur in his fists to hang on. “Sorry. Sorry,” he said.

“It’s alright,” said Vitya. “You can hold on to my fur.”

“I’ll--try not to pull.”

The bear made a wheezy noise, and Yuuri found himself smiling despite himself. “Are you laughing at me?” he asked.

The bear stopped immediately. “Oh I would never dare to laugh at royalty,” he said, though Yuuri felt certain there was still a note of amusement in his voice.

“Hmm,” he said.

Vitya lumbered forward, and Yuuri clung tight until he found his balance in the bear’s gait.

For a while, they journeyed in silence, but then the bear broke it.

“May I ask a rather impertinent question, Your Highness?”

“You may ask,” Yuuri said.

“You said earlier that your parents would be disappointed in you. Why is that? It’s hardly your fault you were attacked.”

“Oh, it’s, uh, not about that. This journey was doomed from the start.”

“How so.”

Yuuri sighed. “I was visiting a foreign court, to uh, to meet their king.”

“Oh?” said Vitya.

“Our kingdoms have an alliance,” Yuuri went on, “and both parties have been hoping to secure it further with a marriage. It was thought the king and I would be compatible.”

“I take it you were not?”

“No, no, well, yes,” Yuuri said. “I really liked Phichit a lot, and I do hope we remain friends. I have absolutely no reason not to wish for a marriage--he is friendly and kind and we have many common interests. But there was just no, no--I don’t know. Whatever it is that makes the difference between the love between friends and the love between, um. Lovers.”

“No magic,” Vitya offered, and Yuuri could hear that smile in his voice again.

“Yes,” Yuuri said. “No--no magic.”

“You hope to marry for love, then, Your Highness.”

“I do,” said Yuuri quietly. “I know it’s--perhaps not practical, and there is every chance that I may end up marrying Phichit after all--I do not believe we would make each other unhappy, but--I do hope.”

“Is there someone whom you do wish to marry?”

“There--was, once. But that was a particularly foolish wish, so perhaps it’s best not to speak of it.”

The bear made its wheezy laugh again. “Well but now I am curious. If you didn’t wish to speak of this love, you ought never to have mentioned them at all.”

“Really,” Yuuri said. “It’s stupid.”

“You aren’t--you aren’t thinking of your magician prince, are you?”

Yuuri flushed, and was glad the bear could not see his face--though why should he care whether a bear thought he was silly. “I told you it was stupid. I only met him the one time, and we were children--I didn’t even know him. But I used to daydream about becoming as great a magician as him some day, meeting in our adulthood, falling in love, making magic together. I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

“It sounds like a pleasant daydream,” was all Vitya said in response.

“Well, it was stupid,” said Yuuri. “He was crown prince of an empire; he could certainly have done better than me. And anyway, he--well obviously, he’s--no longer an option.”

“What was your horse’s name?” Vitya asked, changing subjects.

From there on, Vitya asked Yuuri a hundred more questions about himself--how large was his family, how many other kingdoms had he visited, and which was his favorite, was his sister looking forward to wearing the crown when their parents stepped away, did he dance? The great bear was actually quite nosy, Yuuri thought, but Yuuri was somewhat fearful of what might happen if he refused to answer, so he told Vitya all he asked. The rhythm of their conversation became almost relaxing, and by the time they reached Hasetsu, Yuuri had forgotten to be nervous about the fact that he had returned not with a betrothed, but a giant monster.

 

When they approached the gates of Hasetsu, the bear slowed to a stop. “I believe I should leave you here,” he said. “I do not imagine I will be welcome in the city.”

Yuuri imagined he was right, but he felt ashamed to just send Vitya packing after the bear had saved his life and his glasses, and then carried him home on his back to boot. It would not be the princely thing to do. “No,” he said. “I am the prince, and you will be welcome if I say so. Please, Vitya. Come to the castle, allow me to find some way to repay you for what you’ve done today.”

The bear craned his neck around to look at him. “Are you sure?”

“I am.” Yuuri gave him a weak smile.

Vitya turned forward, and ambled directly to the gate.

“Your Highness?” said the two guards in unison.

“Don’t worry,” Yuuri told them. “This is Vitya. He saved my life. It’s fine.”

“Very well,” said one guard incredulously, and waved them through. The other’s jaw remained dropped.

Yuuri directed Vitya through the streets of the city, waving awkwardly at the people they passed to assure them everything was fine, what they were seeing was perfectly normal.

They entered the castle grounds, and Yuuri asked Vitya to stop, then slid off his back to escort him to the front doors. The path brought them by Yuuri's rose bush. Vitya stopped, and went to inspect it.

“Oh!” Yuuri said. “Ah, yes, um, that's what grew from the flower Prince Victor gave me.”

“Remarkable,” said Vitya, and stuck his nose in one of the blooms.

“That's what Minako said. I can't believe he was powerful enough when he was only twelve to not only make a rose, but cause it to take root.”

Vitya turned away and went back to the path, and Yuuri hurried to follow. “I never met your magician prince,” the bear said, “so perhaps he was really as powerful as you say. But I would suspect there is another explanation.”

Yuuri frowned. “What do you mean?”

Vitya turned his head to look at him. “Your magician prince made the flower, but I struggle to believe anyone could cause it to take root from hundreds of miles away. It should have faded before you even got home if you traveled with it all the way from the Nikiforovan court, like any other flower.”

“Well it didn't,” Yuuri said, feeling defensive of Victor.

“I see that. Was Minako with you on that journey?”

Yuuri shook his head. “No, Minako usually manages the court when the whole family is gone.”

“Well then. Unless you have another magician in your household, it must have been you, Your Highness. It was you who made the flower live and flourish. I suppose it is also you who has caused the bush to grow to such an unnatural height as well.”

“No, no,” Yuuri said. “I hadn't even begun to learn magic. I was only a child of eight.”

“Perhaps you're right,” said the bear, but Yuuri suspected he was only saying so to avoid argument.

After assuring many more guards and courtiers that yes, the bear was his guest, and no, he didn’t need any help, Yuuri brought Vitya to see his family. The Queen rushed forward to greet her son, and then turned to Vitya with a big smile as if it was perfectly normal for your son to bring a giant, white bear into the castle. Yuuri introduced them, and Vitya gave a low, awkward bow to all the assembled family. After Yuuri told the story of the attack, and how Vitya had saved him, his parents at once offered to grant Vitya anything it was in their power to give.

“Are you certain?” Vitya asked.

“Well, short of the kingdom,” King Toshiya chuckled.

“Do not worry; I do not ask for your kingdom,” Vitya said. “I ask for your son’s hand in marriage.”


	3. Chapter 3

“WHAT?!” Yuuri yelled and then clapped his hands over his mouth when he realized how loud it had come out.

“Not for a lifetime,” Vitya said. “Where I come from, a marriage only becomes binding when it has lasted a year and a day. I do not ask for a lifetime from Yuuri. I ask only for a year, during which he must travel with me wherever I choose to go, but on our journey I swear that I shall never cause him harm, nor shall I allow him to come to harm from any other hand if it is within my power to prevent it. In a year, he will be free to go or stay as he pleases.”

The family exchanged confused and worried looks. “I’m sorry, Vitya,” said Queen Hiroko carefully. “But Prince Yuuri’s hand is not something within our power to give. His choice in marriage is his own.”

“Then I only request your permission to ask him,” said the bear.

The King and Queen looked at their son, then at each other. “It isn’t something you need permission for,” said the King. “But if that is all you desire, then it is easily granted.”

“May we perhaps speak privately with our son before you ask?” the Queen said.

Vitya gave another low bow. “I do not believe that is something you need to ask my permission for, Your Majesty.”

Yuuri stared at the bear. Not once had he looked at Yuuri since the conversation began. He followed his parents and Minako out of the throne room and into a side chamber.

“Yuuri?” his father asked. “Do you know what it really wants?”

Yuuri shook his head. “I--I am as surprised as either of you.”

“What are you thinking?” his mother asked.

Yuuri looked from one to the other, then over at Minako, then down at his feet. “He saved my life. I feel--it would not be honorable to refuse his request. After all, he did say it was only for a year. You’re always saying I--I ought to be having more adventures.”

“Well Yuuri, we meant traveling to other courts, learning from other kingdoms--not marrying someone you met before noon today and whose history and intentions must be entirely unknown to you,” his mother protested. “You may say no.”

“You didn’t tell us how the visit to King Phichit went,” his father added quickly. “If the two of you have an arrangement to marry, it would not be dishonorable to refuse--in fact it would be dishonorable to consent!”

Yuuri shook his head. “No, I--I liked him very much, but we both agreed we saw ourselves happier with other people.”

“Perhaps you could tell Vitya it remains a possibility, that you cannot consent to his proposal when King Phichit would have the prior claim.”

“Vitya--Vitya already knows I don’t wish to marry King Phichit,” Yuuri said, and felt guilty at the admission.

“How?” asked his mother.

“He asked where I was coming from, and I told him. And I told him that Phichit and I had agreed to remain only friends…”

“You can still say no,” Minako said, speaking up at last. “You can always say no, Yuuri.”

Yuuri looked up at her. “I know,” he said. 

Minako sighed. “You know he’s not really a bear, right?”

Yuuri nodded. “Yes--I guessed that was the case.”

“What is he, then?” asked the Queen.

“I dare not speculate,” Minako replied darkly.

Yuuri folded his arms. “I think, whatever he is, he is good,” he said to his parents. “I do not believe he means to harm me. I think--I think I am going to say yes.”

“Are you sure?” his mother asked gently.

“No,” Yuuri said. “I’d--like to talk to him privately first. Would you mind sending him back here?”

“Very well,” said his father. The three of them left the chamber, and a few moments later, the bear entered.

“Your Highness--” he began.

“Were we not just speaking of how I wished to marry for love?” Yuuri demanded. “Did you only intend to mock me?”

“I am sorry to do this, but I told you it would only be for a year. I’m not asking for a lifetime, Your Highness. And I do not mock you. Never.”

Yuuri leaned back against the table behind him. “I suppose you haven’t always looked like this,” he sighed.

The bear slowly shook his head. “No. I have not.”

“So I imagine you must have been cursed by a rival magician, or something?”

“Something like that, yes,” said the bear.

“And I’m guessing you need to marry someone to break the spell.”

“Something like that.”

“Anyone? Or--me specifically, for some reason.”

“It could be anyone, perhaps,” said the bear. “But I have always heard that curses are best broken by handsome princes.”

“Why me, then?”

“Very funny, Your Highness” said the bear. “I do apologize for asking something so strange of you, but you said yourself that the only person you ever thought to marry is dead, so I know I am not stealing you from a real marriage at the moment. And you are young--a year will not make a difference in your prospects.”

“How old are you, then?” Yuuri asked.

The bear was silent for a long moment. “I believe that is among the details I am not permitted to say. But I can say that I am also young, and though older than you, only by a little.”

Yuuri nodded. “Alright.” He took a deep breath. “I will marry you, for one year, or until your curse is broken, whichever arrives first. But while I am grateful that you saved my life, I would like to also ask something in return.

“Anything it is within my power to give, and you shall have it,” the bear said.

“I will marry you, as long as you agree to teach me everything you know about magic.”

“Everything?” Vitya said, and Yuuri caught a smirk in his voice. “To teach you everything I know about magic would require you to marry me for much longer than a year.”

“Everything you can teach me in a year, then,” Yuuri said.

“Your Highness,” said the bear, “I would be honored.”

“Very well,” said Yuuri.

Vitya bowed. “Prince Yuuri, may I have your hand in marriage, not for a lifetime, but for a year?’

Yuuri swallowed, and held out a shaking hand. “You may.”

The bear raised a paw, and very gently touched it. “Thank you,” he said.

Yuuri pulled back his hand. “So, when?” he asked.

“Tomorrow,” said the bear. “Morning.”

Yuuri struggled to control his shock. He had not considered that it would be so soon, that after being away from home for several months he was now expected to leave it again at once. “Alright,” he said cautiously. “You will need a place to stay tonight, then. I will have a guest bedchamber prepared for you. That is, unless you prefer to, uh. Sleep outdoors?”

“Your Highness,” said the bear. “I would prefer the bedchamber, if I may. But it must be ready by sundown.”

“That is easily done.” Yuuri turned to leave.

“And once I enter I must not be disturbed until sunrise.”

“I'm sure no one would presume to,” said Yuuri with a touch of irritability, bristling at the bear’s presumption in giving orders in someone else's castle.

“Yuuri--Your Highness,” the bear said, and Yuuri was surprised to hear a note of fear in his voice, “it's very important. I would not insist if it were not so serious.”

Yuuri turned back to look at him. “Okay,” he nodded. “I will order that no one disturb you between sundown and sunrise, Vitya.”

Vitya bowed his head. “Thank you.’

Puzzled, Yuuri went back out to the throne room, followed by the heavy steps of the bear. All he could give his family was a nod. Endeavoring to preserve a calm demeanor, and failing miserably, Yuuri addressed a servant, saying, “My fiance has requested a room for the night, and it is imperative that no one else enter it between sundown and sunrise.”

The servant also endeavored to preserve a calm demeanor at this news, and also failed. “Of--of course, Your Highness,” he said shakily, then half-tripped on his way out the door to carry out the order.

Alone with his family, Yuuri looked among them helplessly. “I, um. My guards--they were killed by the things that attacked us in the woods, before Vitya arrived. I would like to send someone to bring their bodies back for an appropriate burial.”

“Of course, Yuuri,” said his mother. “It shall be done.”

 

After ensuring the bear had been provided a comfortable and well-guarded room for the night, Yuuri went into the vault and found two simple gold bands that would serve as wedding rings, since he imagined a bear could not be carrying any on him, unless he had planned to conjure them by magic. But even the best items made by magic had no guarantee of permanence, and seemed like the wrong thing for a marriage, even one with a guarantee of impermanence. 

With only one night to prepare, there was no possibility of a proper royal wedding, but given that this marriage was not particularly genuine, Yuuri did not regret that. Still, he did not wish to disrespect Vitya, and so he dressed in his finest raiment that morning, and tried to feel as if he might actually be a handsome prince capable of breaking terrible curses. 

The ceremony was as awkward as could be expected--the officiating priest sounding very uncertain as he read off their vows, the only guests in attendance Yuuri’s family, and Minako and her apprentices. Yuuri had at least thought ahead enough to realize that a ring made for human hands would never fit Vitya’s giant claws, and would likely be uncomfortable even if it did, and so he had put Vitya’s ring on a long, gold chain, and when it came his turn to present the ring, he held up the chain, and slipped it over the bear’s great head, where it lay nestled against the thick fur of his neck, beside the pouch. The bear, for his part, made a game attempt to hold the ring out in his paw, but it slipped off. Its fall halted in midair, and Vitya moved it onto Yuuri’s outstretched hand by magic.

At the end, when a proper couple was meant to kiss, Yuuri hesitated a moment, not sure whether a kiss was required by the rules of Vitya’s curse or not. The bear’s impassive expression offered no hint. The pause grew more awkward, and at last Yuuri hesitantly stepped forward and rose up on his tiptoes, and brushed a light kiss to Vitya’s cheek, where the fur was surprisingly soft. When Yuuri stepped back, Vitya’s eyes had gone wide in a rather comical expression, and Yuuri looked at him with a smile and a little shrug.

When the ceremony was complete, Yuuri’s new husband turned to him and said, “Your Highness, you should pack a bag of your things, preferably not too large, and quickly. We need to leave before an hour past noon.”

“Leave now?” Yuuri exclaimed.

“I cannot stay here,” said the bear, looking at Yuuri as if he was foolish to think it in the first place. “There are too many people, and I cannot stay in one place for long, or I may be found.”

“Found by whom? The person who cursed you?”

“Something like that.”

“I--where are we going to go?” Yuuri asked.

“We will wander,” said the bear. “I promise I will ensure you have accommodations as comfortable as possible, under the circumstances.”

“Wander,” Yuuri repeated. “For a year?”

The bear nodded, gravely. “Can you do that?”

Yuuri clenched his fists. “I made a promise,” he said. “I don’t intend to break it. I will go where you go.”

“Thank you.”

Yuuri closed his eyes. “I must go to my rooms, then, and also bid farewell to my family. Will--would you care to come with? Unless you have your own, um, preparations?”

“I am a bear,” Vitya said. “My needs are simple. I will follow, Your Highness.”

Yuuri couldn’t find anything else to say, so he led the way to his rooms in silence, and Vitya seemed content to keep it. Vitya was wildly out of proportion with the castle, and when they reached Yuuri’s chambers, he had to do an awkward sort of shuffle to fit through the doorway.

“Sorry,” said Yuuri.

“Another reason why we need to leave this place, Your Highness,” Vitya said lightly.

Yuuri entered his bedchamber, and looked around. The things he’d brought to Phichit’s court were long gone with his horse, and so there was not a great deal that he could pack in the first place. Vitya seemed to think they were not bringing horses, which was wise, perhaps, as Yuuri was not confident that a horse would be comfortable around the giant bear. Yuuri rooted about in his wardrobe until he unearthed the satchel he used to pack when he and Mari went exploring in the woods in their youth. There was no need to maintain a princely appearance if they were to be tramping about the wilderness for a year, and it wasn’t as if Vitya could judge his fashion sense, given that he wore nothing at all, so Yuuri decided that his simplest coat and trousers would do, and a single set of nightclothes. He could keep them clean with magic, and spare himself the weight of anything more. Into the satchel went also a pen and notebook, a water flask, and a knife. Yuuri changed into his simple clothes, tied his hair back in a short queue, and was just finishing pulling on his boots when Vitya ambled into the chamber.

Vitya went directly to the window--the one with the roses outside. “Well,” he said. “You truly are a romantic.”

Yuuri blushed as he shouldered his satchel. “Oh, leave me be,” he said, without much feeling.

Vitya turned to look at him. “I do hope you find a worthy recipient of such gestures someday, Your Highness. If you ever find magic with someone, you are sure to sweep them off their feet.”

Yuuri gave him half a smile. “I endeavor not to hope for much.”

The bear cocked his head a little to the side. “Are you ready, Your Highness?”

Yuuri nodded. “I’m--afraid I don’t much look the part of a handsome prince now, but I thought, if we’re ‘wandering’....”

“On the contrary,” said Vitya. “You look very much like a handsome prince. I’m not sure you can help it.”

Yuuri felt himself flush a little, and then more upon realizing it. He could not believe the bear was not making some sort of joke at his expense, though Yuuri was not sure what it was. “Well. Alright.” He cleared his throat. “Let us go, then.”

The bear nodded.

Yuuri led the way out, feeling reluctant to be leaving behind his comfortable bed once more for who knew what lay ahead for the next year. His family awaited them in the great hall.

“I imagine you will wish to say farewell in private, Your Highness,” Vitya said. “I will wait for you outside.”

Yuuri nodded, but before Vitya could shuffle out the door, the Queen stopped him.

“Vitya,” she said, and gave him a slight bow. “We are honored to welcome you to our family, though it may only be for a short time. She put a hand to his cheek, and he flinched as if startled. “Please do take care of our Yuuri,” she said. “We love him very, very much.”

For a moment, Vitya only stared at her, seemingly lost. “You have my word,” he said at last. “I promise to keep him safe.”

“Thank you,” the Queen said, with a smile.

“No, thank you,” said Vitya, looking about and still appearing a little off-kilter at this conversation. After a bit of an awkward pause he gave final bow to the family, and left.

Yuuri found himself in tears as he said goodbye. He hadn’t quite realized how much he missed his family while abroad with King Phichit, and it tore at his heart to leave them again so soon.

“I think you’re right, you know,” said his mother as she hugged him. “I think whatever he is, he is good.”

“Let’s hope so,” said his sister. She tucked a strand of hair that had fallen loose from its ribbon behind his ear. “Take care of yourself, Yuuri. Don’t do anything too stupid, okay?”

Yuuri laughed a little, ignoring the deep pit of fear in his stomach. “I will do my best.”

 

Yuuri did not wish to begin his journey with Vitya in tears, and so he paused a minute before the doorway to dab at his eyes with his handkerchief and blink them away. When joined Vitya in the courtyard, the bear took a long look at his face, then simply nodded, and started walking. Grateful to once more be spared a conversation, Yuuri jogged a little to keep up with him. Townsfolk stared at them as they made their way out of the city, and though Yuuri knew he ought to be reassuring them that he was going to be fine, he could not muster the cheer to wave.

At last, they found themselves once more on the edge of wood they had met in. 

“Your Highness--” Vitya began.

“Please, don’t--there’s no need to keep calling me that. You may just call me Yuuri. We are, ah. Married, after all.” Yuuri laughed nervously.

“Very well, Yuuri.” The bear looked at him a moment. “Yuuri, I’m very sorry to take you away from your family. I promise I will return you to them. I hope you believe that I have no ill intentions toward you. All I wish is to break my curse, and when that is done I swear that you may ask me in turn for anything you desire, and I will give it to you without hesitation.”

Yuuri managed a little smile. “Oh, Vitya, that won’t do. Then we shall be off-balance again, and I will owe you once more.”

“Well,” said Vitya. “You are too gracious, my prince. I would like to get as far from where those beasts attacked yesterday as possible before dark. Will you be alright riding again?”

“Are you alright carrying me?” Yuuri asked.

Vitya squinted his eyes and spread his lips in what Yuuri was learning was the bear’s smile. “You weigh next to nothing as far as I can tell. I assure you it is no burden.”

“Very well,” said Yuuri, and once more clambered onto the bear’s back, pushing his fingers into the thick fur to hold himself steady. 

For a while longer they traveled in silence, until Vitya broke it by asking Yuuri about his previous magical training with Minako. “If I’m going to teach you as much about magic as possible I need to know where to start,” he said.

Yuuri told him about the forms of magic he had learned, the texts he had read. The bear took it all in, noting what he was familiar with, and what not. Yuuri was a bit surprised to hear that Vitya was familiar with so many of the texts of his country, as his accent suggested he came from much further west. “Have you ever traveled to Hasetsu before?” Yuuri asked. He wondered if there was any possibility that he had met Vitya as a human without knowing it.

“Alas, no,” Vitya said. “This is my first time, and I regret I could not stay longer. It is a beautiful country. Perhaps one day I will be free to visit again for a longer time. I would like very much to see more of it.”

“Well, as you’re now a relation of the royal family, you will certainly be welcome.”

Vitya laughed his odd bear laugh again, and Yuuri smiled. Riding around on a giant bear to who knew what destination might be a strange way to spend a year, but at least the bear was more or less  
pleasant company.

The afternoon wore on, and when Yuuri’s stomach was just beginning to complain for want of supper, Vitya came to a halt in a smallish sort of clearing. He lowered himself to the ground, and Yuuri slid off his back.

“Hungry?” Vitya asked.

“Yes, actually--I feel like a fool for not packing food.”

“No need,” Vitya said. “Open the pouch around my neck and reach inside--you will find food and drink.”

Yuuri did as he was bid, and tentatively loosened the string tying the pouch closed, and then stuck his hand in. To his surprise, though Vitya had told him to expect it, what he pulled out was a warm paper package that he found to contain bread and tenderly cooked meat. Yuuri stared at the object in his hands. “Is this--if it came from magic, is it really--? I thought conjured food did not contain true nourishment.”

“Not by human magic, no,” said Vitya. “Lucky for us, however, this pouch is fairy-made. It belonged to my mentor, and I, hmm. Borrowed it before I transformed.”

“Borrowed?” Yuuri smiled as he took a seat on a nearby log.

“Well, with your help I hope to be capable of returning it someday, so yes, borrowed.”

“Very well,” Yuuri said. “But what about you? Do you also eat from the pouch? It doesn’t seem to be, um, bear-sized.”

“Well,” said Vitya, “luckily for me, I am not actually always this size.”

Yuuri paused mid-chew. “You aren’t?” he said once he’d swallowed.

“Surprise,” the bear said.

“Uh, okay,” Yuuri said. “You don’t intend to elaborate?”

“It will be dark soon. I don’t wish to interrupt your meal, but I must ask you to remove another item from the pouch.”

Yuuri shook his head. He wrapped the remaining meat and bread in its paper again, and slipped it into his own bag. “Well?” he said, standing and approaching Vitya again.

“Inside you will find what will feel like a very small square box, no more than the width of your thumb. That is what we need now.”

Eyeing Vitya with a bit of trepidation, Yuuri opened the pouch and reached inside once more. It seemed much larger than it looked from the outside, and after feeling around a bit, he located the item Vitya had described. “This?” he said, pulling it out. It was a little cube made of folded red cloth.

“Mmhm,” said the bear. “Cast it on the ground, a bit away from us, if you please.”

Yuuri tossed the little box as directed, and to his surprise, when it struck the earth it exploded, with a flourish of flapping cloth, into quite a large tent.

“I hope you will find these to be comfortable accommodations. They have one notable downside which is, ah, there’s no light inside, you’ll find, and I must ask you never to attempt to make any. I am a bear only by daylight; by night what I am you must not see, or I fear the consequences will be quite disastrous. I promise that after this, I will introduce no more strange rules into our relationship. But I must have your word on this one--never attempt to see me after sundown. I would rather you abandon our marriage than do that.”

Yuuri felt fear creep into his mind, but he placed a hand over his heart, and said, “I understand. You have my word.”

“Thank you, Yuuri,” the bear said gravely.

“Um,” said Yuuri.

The bear cleared his throat. “If you would--?” he said.

“Oh! Right.” Yuuri lifted the opening of the tent and stepped inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I was a little late with this one! I lost Monday-Wednesday to pre-, during, and post-election stress and spent the rest of the week catching up on nanowrimo and didn't have time to edit. Thanks for waiting! :)


	4. Chapter 4

As soon as Yuuri’s head passed through the tent's opening, there was nothing but a thick, impenetrable darkness. His eyes kept waiting to adjust to the light that surely would filter in from the last rays of the sun outside, but of course it never came. He walked in, and instead of hard ground below his feet as he expected, the floor of the tent felt slightly springy and soft. Perplexed, Yuuri removed his boots and left them to the side of the entrance. He walked back further, and as he walked his feet knocked against what felt like cushions and pillows and began to discover that Vitya’s tent appeared to just be a large and luxurious bed. The bear’s nature grew odder by the minute. Yuuri sat down slowly, adjusting cushions out of his way until he felt comfortable. There was no sign of Vitya yet, so Yuuri, still hungry, took his supper back out of his bag and finished it in several large gulps.

At last there came a rustling at the entrance, and Yuuri heard, but could not see, someone step inside. Someone, he thought, not something, for there was no heavy tread of the bear, but rather the light two-footed step of a human. Or something like a human. Vitya’s insistence that Yuuri not see his face in whatever form he took at night did not seem to bode especially well. “Um, Vitya?” he called softly.

“Hello, Yuuri, yes, it’s me.”

Yuuri startled. The tone and accent of the voice was the same, but the bear’s deep bass had been replaced by a light tenor, which Yuuri had not expected in the slightest. He heard another rustle of fabric, and then the footsteps came towards him. His heart rate rose against his will, not knowing what to be afraid of.

“Yuuri?” Vitya said again.

“Y-yes?” Yuuri said.

“Ah, sorry,” Vitya said, “I wasn’t quite sure where you were.” He adjusted his trajectory, and the steps moved closer.

Yuuri held up a hand, and suddenly it was bumped into by a leg that felt like it was covered in silk.

“Oh, hahaha,” Vitya laughed, taking a step back. “There you are. My apologies.”

Vitya’s true laugh was clear and soft, and Yuuri hadn’t expected that either. He heard Vitya sit down, perhaps a couple feet in front of him.

“Oh, I’m famished,” Vitya said, and with a crinkle of paper, seemed to have produced a wrapped supper just like Yuuri’s, which he then began to eat rather noisily.

Yuuri didn’t know what to do, so he just sat and listened to Vitya eat and wondered whether the teeth that tore into the meat were very sharp and how afraid of them he ought to be. At last, curiosity overcame him. “So are you, um. Can you tell me what you look like right now or is that not allowed either?”

“Ah, are you imagining I might have become something worse than a bear? No fear, Yuuri, by night I return to my true form, which is as human as yours.”

“Oh, good,” Yuuri said.

“Relieved?” Vitya said. “You never know, I might still be very ugly.”

“Ugly isn’t the same as ‘might be a demon who wants to eat me.’”

Vitya made an irritated tsk. “Yuuri, I promised I would not harm you. That includes not eating you for supper.”

Yuuri huffed a laugh. “Well, thank you for that.”

“Sure thing,” Vitya said, and it sounded like he was smiling.

“Your voice--” Yuuri said.

“Hmm?”

“It’s--sorry, it’s so different from earlier. I hardly recognize you.”

“Would you rather I talk like this?” Vitya said in an affected growl that did not sound at all like his bear voice.

Yuuri smiled. “No, no, you’re fine the way you are.”

“Good, that hurts.”

Yuuri let him finish his dinner in peace. When he heard Vitya stop chewing, he asked, “How long have you been like this?”

Vitya didn’t answer for so long that Yuuri was afraid he had offended him, but at last he said, “Several years. I was younger than you when it happened.”

“Younger? You weren’t even of age? Who would curse a child?”

“Someone rather unpleasant, as you might imagine. But enough about this--I promised to teach you magic, so why not begin?”

Yuuri had so many questions, but he knew that it would be impolite to press such an unpleasant subject. “Sure,” he said. “What first?”

“You’ve proven you already have great skill in conjuring objects, but it seems you haven’t much experience with conjuring intangibles, so let’s talk about that.”

“I’m--Minako offered to teach me more of that, but I’ve always been afraid it might go wrong, and I might hurt someone by accident--or me.”

“Well, do you want to learn?”

“I do.”

“Good. We’ll start with some small, safe things and then see where you’d like to go from there.”

Yuuri felt a light puff of wind lift the hair that fell to either side of his face.

“Feel that?” Vitya said. “See? Small. We’ll start there.”

Vitya told him what he knew about the theory behind intangibles, and Yuuri already knew a great deal anyway--he had read plenty of books, just never been sure he dared try it himself. With Vitya’s patient guidance, he learned to focus his thoughts until he could cause a stream of air to twine around and between his fingers like a little snake.

“Good, good,” Vitya said. “You have a long way to go but that’s not a bad start.”

“Uh, thank you,” Yuuri said.

“I think it’s best we call it a night. We have a long way to go in the morning, and I must be up before I’m no longer of a comfortable size to share this tent with.”

“Um,” said Yuuri. “Is--for the curse, I mean, do we--does the marriage need to be. Consummated?”

Vitya gave a short laugh. “Ah, no, no. Were it only so simple. No, that will not affect the spell in any way, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, well. That’s--a relief. Um, I mean no disrespect, only--”

“You would prefer to save such activities for someone you married for love--not for the sake of breaking curses.”

Yuuri blushed in the darkness. “Something like that.”

“Have no fear--I promise to be a perfect gentleman.”

Heartily embarrassed, Yuuri shuffled a bit further away from his not-bear husband, until his hand fell upon a quilted blanket, which he wrapped himself in and settled in among the cushions for the night.

 

Yuuri did not sleep well, and was awoken by the shift and rustle made by Vitya rising and leaving the tent. He felt about for his spectacles and put them on by habit, forgetting that there was nothing to see. He lay awake wondering how he would know it was safe to leave the tent since the sun’s rays could not pierce its cloth, and also what on earth he was doing. He wandered down all sorts of paths that always led to the conclusion that he was very stupid and had made a terrible mistake, until at last Vitya, in the voice of the bear, called out to him.

“Yuuri, you may awake now, if you wish.”

“I’ve been awake since you left,” Yuuri said once he’d gathered up his things and left the tent.

“I know,” said Vitya. “I apologize for waking you.”

“How do you--?” Yuuri asked, gesturing back at the tent.

“Just snap your fingers,” the bear said.

“Like that?” Yuuri said, and at once the tent folded rapidly in on itself and then leapt from the ground to his palm. “Oh.”

Vitya extended his neck pointedly, and Yuuri caught on, and put the little cloth box back in the fairy pouch. “Take some breakfast while you’re in there,” Vitya said.

Yuuri came out with a packet of hot bacon. “Incredible,” he said, as the smell of salt and fat filled his nose. “What do you do when you don’t have--” he opened and closed his other fist in the air “--hands?”

Vitya sat back on the ground. “Do everything after dark,” he said. “I confess, it is nice to have permanent hands around. It does make things easier.”

From there onward, their days varied only by scenery, and the lessons taught by Vitya. They traveled a while, sometimes all day, with Yuuri on Vitya's back, and when they stopped Yuuri practiced magic, and Vitya helped. His critiques would have wounded Yuuri's pride if it weren't for their cheerful delivery. He seemed to have taken Yuuri's magical education very seriously, and was keen to make sure he made the most of what Yuuri was trying to think of as a year of apprenticeship, rather than marriage.

When the sun got low, Yuuri would retrieve the tent from Vitya's fairy pouch and toss it to the ground, then go inside and wait for sundown, and Vitya would pick up their lessons where they'd left off when he still had fur. Of course, for all Yuuri knew, he might have fur even by night--he'd not yet had an opportunity to check.

 

A month in, Yuuri lay awake long after Vitya had stopped talking. “Vitya?” he said softly.

“Hmm? What is it, Yuuri?”

“Have you done this before? Tried to break the curse with a marriage?”

“No,” Vitya said. “You are my first.”

“Really? In all this time?” Yuuri heard Vitya shift beneath his blanket.

“You know,” Vitya said, “Most people, when they see a giant bear, do not stick around long enough to hear a marriage proposal, much less invite them into their home.”

“Oh,” Yuuri said. “I’m sorry,” he added after a moment. “You must have been very lonely.”

Vitya said nothing.

“I can't imagine how terrible this must have been,” Yuuri continued. “If it were me, I'd have gone mad.”

“Maybe I have,” Vitya said. He seemed to be joking, but Yuuri felt his heart wasn't entirely in it.

“I’m sorry I’m not--that this isn’t, well. You know. I'm sure you'd rather have actually fallen in love. After all you've been through, I feel like you deserve a more romantic ending.”

Vitya snorted. “Nonsense. What could be more romantic than a marriage of convenience born out of guilt and bribery. I don't know what you're talking about.”

Yuuri rolled his eyes, unseen. “Well, there are worse marriages, I suppose. At least you and I get along. That is, I mean, I feel like we do…”

“No, Yuuri, I do find your company very pleasant. Even if it isn't what either of us may have dreamed of, I agree it could be worse. I am glad it is you. Even if I did win you through guilt and bribery.”

Yuuri said no more, but as he drifted off, for the first time he felt a very small tug at his heart that said, _What if you stayed..._

 

Their journey began to meander toward high, snow-capped mountains. Vitya stopped beside a stream one day, and said, “Ah! Yuuri. This is a great place to learn about the memory of objects.”

Yuuri slid down from his back, and planted himself in front of Vitya.

“There are spells to make objects recall their past,” Vitya said. “Like this stream here--it came down from the mountain--you see?” He pointed his nose upstream, where the little trickle came out from among the woods further up the mountainside. “It used to be ice, and before that, snow. You can make it remember.” Vitya dipped a paw into the water and came up with frost all over his fur, which he shook off at once. “You try,” he said.

Yuuri spent the afternoon scooping up water, changing it to ice in his hands. After a time, he could toss a handful of the water in the air, and it would burst into a puff of snowflakes that drifted slowly back to earth. He couldn’t help but smile at the sight, and he bloomed with pride when Vitya praised his quick learning.

“There are other kinds of memories, too,” Vitya said. “Not just what a thing was, but what was done to it.” As he spoke, a fallen branch that had been lying in the stream rose into the air and floated over their heads. Vitya spoke a word, and with a great whoosh, a force erupted from the branch that caused the grass all around it to blow flat. “The wood remembers the water,” Vitya said. “This is only a little stream, but that branch lay in it for several days, so it remembers far more water than what we see.”

Yuuri nodded, understanding. “The longer it knows the water, the stronger its memory, then?”

In answer, Vitya caused a pebble to rise from the water, worn smooth by untold years. He set it down much further away than the branch, and then the air exploded. Trees bent back, their leaves stripped away. The grass flattened out much further than before, and around where the pebble had fallen the earth was bare. Vitya had cast some sort of shield in front of them just in time, sparing their lives. 

Yuuri stumbled forward and picked up the rock, turning it thoughtfully. He could sense, somehow, the absence in it, all its stored years of energy spent in a moment. He dropped it back to the ground, harmless. He looked back at Vitya, and the bear had placed one paw against a tree trunk, summoning the leaves back to rejoin their stems. Yuuri smiled. Vitya was kind even to trees. Without a word, Yuuri walked to one of the other trees and did the same, and together, one by one, they restored the whole streambank.

“Never toss a riverstone without raising a shield first,” Vitya said once they’d finished.

Yuuri gave Vitya a look. “Yes, I see that.” He climbed onto Vitya’s back, and they ambled across the creek and up the hills toward the mountains. “Maybe you ought to have taught me shields first, then,” he said.

Vitya made his snort of a laugh. “Very well,” he said. “Shields next.”

“Some teacher you are,” Yuuri said, smiling even as he grumbled.

“I’m not a teacher; I’m a bear!” said Vitya. “What, do you think I write lesson plans for this? I don’t have any plan at all. Nobody told me a prince was going to make me teach him magic in exchange for marrying me.”

Yuuri patted the bear’s great shoulder. “Oh, dear husband, I was only teasing,” he said.

Vitya craned his head around and winked. “I know, darling prince.”

 

In the mountains, a snow storm fell upon them. Yuuri cast a spell to warm himself at first, but the wind was so bitterly cold that he found his strength waning. “Vitya,” he shouted over the wind. “I cannot--it’s too cold.” His fingers were beginning to get stiff, and his teeth chattered so much he feared he’d break them.

Vitya came upon an outcropping large enough to provide some shelter, and once they were within, he let Yuuri to the ground. “Here,” he said, and gestured with one giant paw for Yuuri to come closer.

Yuuri approached, then understood what Vitya was offering. With great relief and only a little embarrassment, Yuuri stood right against Vitya’s chest, his freezing face and hands buried in Vitya’s warm fur. “Thank you,” he mumbled.

Vitya’s paw came to rest against Yuuri’s back, pressing him close, and Yuuri could feel warmth spreading from it. The more he warmed up, between Vitya’s magic and body heat, the stronger he felt, and began to put a little heat back into Vitya, to make up for taking so much.

“Oh, Yuuri, you don’t have to--” Vitya said, but Yuuri shook his head.

“I want to,” Yuuri said.

The storm passed, and Vitya plowed out through the drifts, Yuuri following behind. Vitya kept looking up at the sky, and Yuuri knew that the storm had delayed them--there was a good chance they might not make it down to the foothills before dark now. “Should I ride?” he called.

Vitya answered by kneeling, and Yuuri hopped on, then had the absolutely terrifying experience of riding on the back of a bear careening down a snow-covered mountainside. Vitya was just sliding half the time, the galloping movement of his paws only serving to add speed. Perhaps a quarter-mile from where the land grew less steep, Vitya stopped. “No time,” he growled, and Yuuri leapt to the ground. “Take the tent,” he said. “Go find a good place for it. I’ll find you after sundown.”

Yuuri slipped his hand into the pouch and found the tent.

“And don’t look back--all that energy. I don’t think I have enough to hide myself.”

Yuuri nodded. “I understand,” he said. Then, before he turned to go, added, “Please be careful, okay?”

Vitya blinked at him. “Thank you?” he said.

Yuuri chose each step and hand-hold with care as he clambered down the icy path. At last, he made it to a broad area of fairly level ground, and found a secluded hollow where their tent might go unobserved. Vitya had been right--it was already dark by the time the tent was up, and Yuuri went inside.

Yuuri could barely feel his feet, and once he’d slipped out of his boots he hung his wet socks in the air to dry, and sat down to focus on warming up his toes. He had managed to more or less defrost his body by the time Vitya entered the tent, but between that and trying to warm the tent as well, not to mention the entire day they’d just had, Yuuri was feeling awfully sleepy, and had buried himself beneath the blankets without bothering to change into nightclothes.

He listened to the sound of Vitya slipping on his robe, and as soon as he’d done so, Vitya walked back and then flopped to the ground not far from Yuuri.

“Okay,” he said. “That was a mistake. Let’s never do it again.”

“Agreed,” Yuuri said. 

Vitya produced two hot mugs of soup from the fairy pouch, which went a good way towards making up for their wretched afternoon. Regardless, Yuuri felt his teeth chatter a little, the cold just too deep into his bones to drive off.

“Still cold?” Vitya asked, and without waiting for a response, did something that increased the temperature of all the cushions and blankets around them.

Yuuri had never felt such an exquisite pleasure, but he couldn’t help but imagine that it might have felt even better if he could have been snuggling against Vitya’s fur as he’d done earlier.

Sometime in the night, Yuuri blinked awake at the sound of his name.

“Yuuri?” Vitya asked again, and Yuuri tensed at the note of fear in his voice.

“Yes? Vitya, what is it?” He sat up.

“Oh.” Vitya breathed a sigh. “I’m sorry.”

Yuuri frowned in the darkness. “Is there something wrong?”

“No, no--just a bad dream,” Vitya said. After a pause, he added. “You left. I wasn’t sure if it was real.”

Yuuri softened. He crawled in the direction of Vitya’s voice, until their hands brushed. “I’m here,” he said. “I didn’t leave.”

“Sorry for waking you,” Vitya said. He pulled back his hand, and Yuuri heard the rustling of him laying down once more.

“It’s alright,” Yuuri whispered. “Don’t worry.” Some madness made him want to lay down beside Vitya, just to touch him, just so he would know Yuuri had not left, but his reason won out, and he moved back to his own little nest in the cushions. He fell back asleep while counting Vitya’s breaths.

 

Vitya refused to speak of his past in any but the vaguest terms, and Yuuri learned not to ask. He felt awkward, though, with Vitya knowing so much about him, and Yuuri knowing so little. He longed for some topic of conversation beyond their talk of magic, just for some variety, and besides, he still felt a little fearful of the bear. He wished to know him better if only to be put a little more at ease, to feel that he could understand him, in some way. 

In the end, one of his shortest but most enlightening conversations with Vitya concerned a bird. 

Vitya stopped to allow Yuuri to eat lunch, and just as Yuuri took a bite, Vitya gasped with such force that Yuuri choked on his sweet cornbread. Yuuri drank from his flask and swallowed with great difficulty, then whispered a hoarse “What?”

The bear did not answer, and only stared into the distance.

Yuuri followed his gaze, and at last saw what had given Vitya such a startle. Perched on branch on the far side of the clearing was a large, dark bird. One wing was stretched out, revealing pale gray feathers beneath the black, and the bird was cleaning it with brisk, methodical swipes of its beak. Yuuri watched it, now and then glancing back at Vitya, who remained entranced. The bird finished the left wing, and before it could move on to the right, it whipped its head in Vitya’s direction. As if it had only just now realized it was being watched, it took off back into the deep wood, a short, squawking cry trailing behind it.

“Vitya?” Yuuri asked. 

“That was a silver thrush,” Vitya said after a moment.

“I’ve never heard of it,” said Yuuri.

“They only live in the forest this side of the mountains,” said Vitya. “They’re very rare. Each one has a territory that stretches for miles, and they only lay one egg at a time. It’s said a silver thrush can live its entire life without seeing another of its kind once it leaves the nest. I always thought that was so sad. I’ve never seen one in real life--only paintings.”

Yuuri considered him. “At least some of them must find each other, though. Otherwise they wouldn’t still be out here. Maybe that one was cleaning its wings because it’s meeting a beau tonight.”

Vitya sighed.

“Vitya?” Yuuri asked into what felt like a very awkward pause. “Do you feel like a silver thrush?”

At first, Vitya said nothing. Then he made a high-pitched squawk like the bird, and it was such a funny sound, made even more comical for coming from throat of a bear, that Yuuri burst into bubbling laughter. “Sorry, sorry--” he said between giggles, “--you just--”

Vitya swung his head to look at him, and to Yuuri’s relief he was baring his teeth in his terrifying bear grin. “You have a beautiful laugh,” Vitya said. “Has anyone ever told you that? I’ll have to try to be funnier, now that I know.”

Yuuri blushed, and his heartbeat knocked against his ribs. As they traveled on that afternoon, he couldn’t stop smiling, and the alarming thought occurred to him that he might have a crush on his husband.


	5. Chapter 5

Vitya was teaching him how to make shields. At first he had Yuuri casting to defend himself while Vitya made bits of bark and small pebbles fly toward him. On a rainy day, he told Yuuri to make a shield to protect them from the rain, and after a long dreadful wet period in which Yuuri felt awfully close to a panic attack, he finally managed to sustain a protection spell strong enough to keep the rain off them for the rest of the day--a feat that earned him a bump of Vitya’s head into his chest when they stopped for the night, which Yuuri imagined must be the bear’s attempt at a hug.

Vitya declared that Yuuri was ready for bigger challenges, and grew excited when their journey took them down a ravine with an enormous waterfall. “You did the rain,” he told Yuuri blithely. “This is really just the same!”

Yuuri was not very confident that this was the case, but Vitya’s encouragement was so enthusiastic that at last he felt too guilty over the thought of disappointing his teacher to refuse. Under Vitya’s watchful eye, he waded into the rocky waters until he was standing just within the waterfall’s spray. Mustering his concentration, Yuuri threw his mind out beneath the water, pushing up, forcing the the thundering water to split and flow out sideways instead of down. For several minutes, nothing happened at all, and then parts of the water would be redirected, but not all, and at last, with Vitya calling out advice and encouragements, Yuuri did it. The water beneath the falls grew still as the untold gallons poured away to scatter out far to the side.

Vitya roared out a cheer.

Feeling his triumph, Yuuri began to walk forward, keeping the water away, until he was standing directly beneath it, and could look up and see the incredible sight of the water striking against his magic and rolling away. He could feel himself growing weaker, but he wanted to prove he could do this.

Vitya seemed to agree. “Yes! Excellent, Yuuri! You can do this!” he shouted from the waterside.

Yuuri could barely hear him over the water.

A drop hit his hand and Yuuri aggressively pushed back harder, but his head had begun to spin. A stream of water pummeled his shoulder, and Yuuri thought Vitya must be saying something, but he couldn’t hear, and then he blacked out, and the full force of the waterfall came crashing down.

 

When Yuuri came to, the world was still black, and bit by bit he pulled the threads of his awareness together until he remembered he must be in the tent. His entire body felt sore, and he didn’t think he could move. There were fingers in his hair, smoothing against his scalp. It felt nice. The nicest. Worth getting murdered by a waterfall for. With each stroke, he felt a little stronger, a little more awake, and there were magic-tingles through his whole body. “Vitya?” he finally managed.

“Shhh,” Vitya said, and Yuuri realized his head was cradled in his husband’s lap. He could feel the silk of Vitya’s robe against his cheek.

“Sorry,” Yuuri said, thinking of how difficult it must have been for Vitya to rescue him before he drowned or was dashed against rocks. “I should have--I’m sorry I couldn’t do it. I’m sorry.”

“Shhh, no, darling,” Vitya said. “You did very well. It’s my fault this happened--I should never have pushed you so hard.”

Yuuri let Vitya keep stroking his hair in silence for a little while. Then at last he said, “It’s okay, Vitya. I want you to push me. I want to get stronger. I can do this.”

“Good,” said Vitya, sounding a little brighter. “I know you’re strong enough to do more. You just need to learn the confidence to use it. I believe you’re going to need to use that strength some day, and I want you to be ready.”

Yuuri was still too tired to process that this was an unusual, and perhaps alarming thing to say. He recalled, however, that Vitya had called him darling without the irony of a week ago, and the memory of that word rolling out in Vitya’s accent while his fingers tangled in Yuuri’s hair made his heart beat faster, a smile playing sleepily on his lips as he drifted off once more.

 

One morning in autumn, Vitya tensed and stopped abruptly.

“Vitya?” Yuuri said quietly.

Vitya sank to the ground. “Off,” he said.

Yuuri did as he was told, feeling a little hurt by Vitya’s short tone, and a little afraid of whatever might have brought it on.

“Stay here,” Vitya said. “Don’t move from this spot. Whatever you may hear, don’t follow me. Understand?”

“Uh, sure, okay,” Yuuri said, folding his arms.

“Promise.”

“I promise!” Yuuri said testily.

“I’ll be back,” Vitya said, and with that he bounded away through the forest, moving more quickly than Yuuri had ever seen him, in the direction of the sound.

The braying sound rang out again, and Yuuri thought he could hear Vitya roar in response. The distant, indistinct sounds of battle made a sick pit of fear in his belly. He fidgeted in the place Vitya had left him, and were it not for the fact that Vitya had insisted on his staying there with the same intensity with which he had insisted on Yuuri not trying to see his form after dark, he would be racing to Vitya’s side at once.

Agonizing minutes crawled by, but at last Yuuri heard the sound of Vitya returning. “Vitya!” Yuuri cried as soon as he saw the white head threading back through the trees. At the sound of his name, Vitya picked up his pace a bit, and when he was back in the clearing where he’d left Yuuri, Yuuri broke from his spot and ran to Vitya.

“Yuuri?” Vitya said, and Yuuri threw his arms around the bear’s great neck.

“I was so worried about you,” Yuuri said into his fur.

Vitya raised a paw and pressed it gently to Yuuri’s back. “I’m okay, darling. Not a scratch on me, I promise.”

Yuuri stepped back. “What was that thing? It sounded huge…”

Vitya tilted his head. “It was a Dread Beast,” he said. “You remember the cats? When we first met?”

Yuuri nodded.

“It was like them. Bigger, though. A--little more challenging to dispose of. But everything is fine now.”

Yuuri frowned. “The cats--were they there because you were? Were my guards and I just in the way?”

Vitya looked at him for a long time before answering. “Yes,” he said at last. “It was not a coincidence that the cats and I appeared in the wood at the same time.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Vitya sat down with a heavy _whump_ , and hung his head. “I was afraid you would be upset, or blame me. I was afraid that if you knew I was being hunted you would not want to risk staying with me.”

“You’re being hunted?”

Vitya nodded. “They don’t know where I am, but they’re trying. When a hunter finds me, I have to destroy it before it can report back to its masters with my body in tow. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more, but it’s--it’s not allowed by the spell on me.”

Yuuri stepped closer again and laid a hand against Vitya’s cheek. “Okay,” he said. Then, “I told you I wasn’t leaving. You don’t have to be afraid of that.”

The look in the bear’s eyes was unbearably grateful.

That night, Vitya woke from a dream calling Yuuri’s name again. This time, Yuuri went to him at once, and answered by hugging him. “Did you dream I left again?” Yuuri asked.

“Yes,” Vitya whispered back.

“I’m right here,” Yuuri said, and rested his cheek against Vitya’s silk shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere."

With a bit of hesitation, Vitya raised his arms and turned into Yuuri’s embrace to hold him back. “Thank you,” was all he said.

Yuuri patted him a little on the back, and then Vitya pulled away again. When Yuuri heard him lie down, he reached out and touched his arm. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked.

“I’m going to be okay,” Vitya said.

Yuuri squeezed his arm a little, then returned to sleep.

 

Yuuri didn’t know what was happening, only that a year suddenly seemed very short and the idea of having to let Vitya go at the end of it no longer sounded much like freedom. Will you still need me when you no longer need me? he wondered over and over.

“Vitya…” Yuuri said softly one night.

“Mm?”

“What happens when this is over--when the curse is broken, I mean?”

Yuuri could hear Vitya shift onto his side. “You go home to your family, a bachelor once more,” he said. “And I--I do not yet know what I will do.”

Yuuri bit his lip. “You could come back with me,” he said.

“Are you suggesting we make our marriage permanent?” Vitya said, lightly.

Yuuri blushed in the darkness. “No, no, no! Just, I mean, if you don’t have anywhere else to go--you could. You’d be safe there.”

“Safe?”

“From whoever cursed you?”

“Ah,” said Vitya. “Now what do they call the consort of a prince in your kingdom?”

“Oh, well. The husband of a prince is also a prince.”

“Prince Vitya,” Vitya said. “And what would Prince Vitya do?”

Yuuri smiled a little. “Um, whatever you wanted, I guess. Or, help my family run the kingdom, or whatever.”

“What do you do to help your family?” Vitya asked.

Yuuri rolled onto his back. “Well, I tend to get panic attacks when I speak in front of crowds, so...not a lot of public work. So, research, mostly. When someone has a question, I go to the library and find an answer.”

“Do you like to read?”

“Yes,” said Yuuri. “Um--do you?”

“Reading is about all I ever did, as a boy. And an adult. These past years, of course, I could only do it at night. Bears aren’t very good at turning pages.”

Yuuri smiled to himself. “I suppose you could always do it by magic.”

“True,” Vitya chuckled. “But it always seemed like too much effort.”

“Oh,” said Yuuri, a thought dawning on him. “I guess before I came along you didn’t need it to be dark in here. Sorry I’m keeping you from reading now. I could always leave the tent for a while, give you time--”

“No, Yuuri,” Vitya said, and there seemed to be a smile in his voice. “Are you forgetting I’m the one who asked you to be here?”

Yuuri laughed. “Oh, right.”

“After all these years alone, I assure you I treasure the chance to have someone to talk to. The books can wait. I only get you for a year.”

Yuuri was silent after that, circling back around to why he asked in the first place, what happens when the year is over. He could never tell with Vitya, what he really wanted, what he really thought of him. They had seemed to grow so close, and Vitya seemed truly happy in his company, and yet he never failed to remind Yuuri that he was there only to break a curse, that their marriage would be void after a year, that all this was just pretend. But Yuuri had grown to cherish the feeling of this ring around his finger, the easy pleasure of Vitya’s company with his gentle voice and a smile that Yuuri couldn’t see. Vitya always seemed amused by their marriage, but Yuuri found it less and less humorous. He had dreamed of love, but never truly believed he could find it, and now he found it blooming in his heart like a rose, and the thought that come midsummer, Vitya intended to pluck the bloom out by the roots and leave for good filled him with an ache that grew with each passing day.

 

Yuuri put three apples on the ground in front of Vitya. They were blue because, well, it was Yuuri’s favorite color and they weren’t really apples anyway.

Vitya eyed them and whuff-ed through his big nose. “If you keep making blue things I’m going to start to think it’s the only color you’re capable of conjuring.”

Yuuri folded his arms and turned the apples gold.

“Just checking,” Vitya said. He grinned, which--as much as Yuuri had come to feel fond of Vitya--was still an alarming look on a bear.

“Just tell me which is which,” Yuuri said.

Vitya crouched low and looked at each of the apples. “Rock,” he said, pointing with one paw at the apple on his far right. He looked up at Yuuri expectantly.

Yuuri shook his head, smiling. “No, no, I’m not letting you play probability games with me. You have to get them all right on the first try.”

“Fair enough. Rock, shoe, mushroom,” Vitya said.

“Ha!” Yuuri said. “Wrong.”

“Rock, mushroom--” Vitya stopped, his ears twitching.

“What?” Yuuri said.

“They found me again,” Vitya said. “Stay here. Don’t move.”

“Can’t I--”

“No. Stay. Promise.”

“Okay, okay I promise. Be careful, okay?”

The bear paused, looking at him a moment. “Sure, Yuuri,” he said, then moved quickly out of sight.

Yuuri waited. He heard the sounds of Vitya and the beast fighting, a great deal of roaring and crashing. It seemed to go on longer than the last one, and Yuuri began to feel nervous. He couldn’t tell whether the yelps of pain came from the beast or Vitya, but he was imagining all kinds of dreadful things happening. He needed Vitya to come back, if only to help him learn to breathe again.

At last, it stopped, and Yuuri could hear Vitya returning. He breathed a sigh of relief, until Vitya staggered out of the trees with blood pouring from his side. He made eye contact with Yuuri, then collapsed on the creek bank.

Yuuri rushed to his side, trying to think through the tears that had sprung into his eyes. “Vitya, Vitya,” he said, stroking his fingers through his fur. Then he gathered himself, and focused on the wound--four deep gashes down Vitya’s left side. Just as Minako once showed him, he investigated the injuries to determine how serious it was. As much as Vitya was bleeding, his ribs had protected him from much internal damage. Yuuri took a deep breath and put his hands out over Vitya’s side, calling the veins and arteries and skin to knit themselves back together. He went slowly, knowing he had to fix him before Vitya lost too much blood to recover from, but fearful of getting it wrong. At last, he felt sure that he had repaired the wound to the best of his ability, and turned to the easier task of cleaning away the blood from Vitya’s white fur.

When he was done, Vitya looked like he was just sleeping, chest rising and falling as he breathed. Yuuri sat down by his neck and stroked Vitya’s head. He remembered how he had collapsed when he used too much magic at once, and how Vitya had cradled his head and passed energy back into him. Vitya might be suffering from the same depletion of energy, so Yuuri tried to give him a little of his own, just a little trickle at a time with each caress of Vitya’s neck. He didn’t know how long they sat there, but as the shadows grew long, Vitya stirred, blinking back to consciousness.

Yuuri’s hand stilled on Vitya’s forehead, relief flooding his heart.

“Yuuri….” Vitya said weakly.

“I’m right here,” Yuuri said, swiping his hand down to rest on Vitya’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” Vitya said. “Sorry if I frightened you.”

Yuuri smiled. “You scared me half to death. I’m okay, though.”

Vitya hummed. “Me too, it seems.”

Yuuri glanced at the sky. “It’s getting late--I need to find a place to put the tent.” He reached into Vitya’s fairy pouch and pulled out the little box. “Can you get up?”

“Questionable,” Vitya said, but he rolled over to plant his feet on the ground and rose shakily to his feet. “Oh,” he said. “You healed me.”

Yuuri would have been more upset by his tone of surprise had he not been too overwhelmed by gladness that Vitya was alive. So instead he just said, “The one on your right was the mushroom,” and crossed to the other side of the creek in search of a tent-sized clearing.

When he found something suitable, Vitya was still lagging a few feet behind. Yuuri cast the tent, then stopped at the entrance, looking back. Vitya sat down heavily. Yuuri glanced nervously at the sky. “If I leave you now, will you be able to get into the tent by yourself?”

Vitya nodded. “I’m just tired. I’ll be in soon.”

Yuuri nodded back, then went inside to wait again. Vitya at last pulled aside the flap at the entrance, returned to his two-legged form. Yuuri went to him as soon as he heard Vitya pull on his robe, and put his arm around him to offer support.

“Yuuri, I’m fine, this really isn’t necessary--”

Yuuri tsked. “I can’t take care of my husband when he’s been hurt?”

Chuckling softly, Vitya surrendered some of his weight to Yuuri’s shoulders. “Okay, darling husband, I suppose I can let you take care of me.”

“Good,” Yuuri said. He helped Vitya lay down among the cushions, then took the pouch from around his neck and pulled them out two bread bowls filled with a hearty beef stew. Yuuri fished a couple sets of chopsticks out of his bag, and handed one to Vitya with his bread bowl.

They ate in silence, Yuuri taking comfort from listening to Vitya eat his stew, imagining the nourishment bringing his energy back. When they finished, Yuuri bumped Vitya in the arm to request his chopsticks back, and Vitya handed him a wooden spoon.

“Vitya,” said Yuuri, tracing the outline of the object to be sure there was no mistake, “Did you transfigure my chopsticks?”

“Oops.”

“Vitya!”

“I don’t know how to use those things, Yuuri!” Vitya protested. “I can change them back for you--”

“No, no,” Yuuri said. “I can do it.” He put them back in his bag with the others. “Next time, when you’re not an invalid, I’m going to teach you how to use them properly.”

“I look forward to it,” Vitya said, and the genuine happiness in his voice drove Yuuri’s irritation away entirely.

Yuuri scooted closer to Vitya’s side, and gingerly reached over him to place his hand in the approximate place the wounds had been in his bear form. “Does it still hurt at all?” he asked.

“No,” Vitya said, and flopped his nearer hand onto Yuuri’s knee. “Maybe just a little bruising. You did really well, Yuuri. Thank you.”

Yuuri took the hand on his knee and held it lightly in his fingers. “Thank you for being a good teacher.”

Vitya squeezed his fingers. “Good job with the apples, too.”

Yuuri smiled. “So you admit you couldn’t tell the difference?”

Vitya laughed. “Yes, you have passed my transfiguration test. You’ll have to try some larger objects tomorrow.”

“I’ll do it.”

“I know you will,” Vitya said, a note of lovely fondness in his voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hubba-whoops. I got very distracted by Thanksgiving and NaNo shenanigans and forgot to edit two chapters in a row. My plan was to have everything posted by Christmas, so I'll try to get 3 chapters up this week to make up for it!


	6. Chapter 6

In winter their hours of traveling grew shorter by necessity, and with long dark evenings in the tent, Yuuri found that he and Vitya both had begun to grow tired of having nothing to do but invisible magic lessons, and their conversation more and more often strayed to personal topics. Yuuri talked about his friends and family back home, and explained the various nuances of Hasetsu politics--a subject on which Vitya was curiously well-informed for a foreigner--enough to ask smart questions and even offer advice that Yuuri filed away to share with his sister later. 

Vitya made an earnest effort to give as much of himself as he could without violating what he claimed were the terms of the curse. Sometimes this resulted in lengthy rants about the most mundane things, but Yuuri found them amusing. Vitya complained about not being able to request particular meals from the fairy pouch, which launched a comprehensive list of his favorite foods and how often the pouch had provided them in the years it had sustained him. (It had given him fried grasshoppers on four separate occasions, but never once had it delivered pancakes, and Vitya considered this an outrage.)

Meanwhile, Yuuri drifted ever so slowly closer. Where they had started their journey sitting and sleeping at least a yard apart, they had closed the gap by inches, until now they lay side by side, connected at the warm line between their arms.

One night, Yuuri mustered the courage to ask Vitya something. “Vitya? May ask you a--strange favor?”

Vitya laughed. “A strange favor? What sort of thing would that be?”

“Um,” said Yuuri. “Is--I know I’m not allowed to look at you like this, but, can I--touch you? Like, your face? Just so I can sort of find out what you look like?”

“That is a strange favor,” Vitya said, sounding amused. “But yes, I think that would be allowed.”

“May I?”

“Okay,” Vitya laughed.

Yuuri bit his lip, then reached out until he felt Vitya’s chest, leaning toward him, and followed it upward to his face. He found his hairline, and learned that Vitya had a tall forehead. He traced the shape of his eyebrows, and his eyes, eyelids closing beneath his touch, eyelashes light against his fingers. He traced a somewhat triangular nose, and then lips that were spread in a wide smile. Vitya giggled when Yuuri ran his fingers around his jawline.

“Oh, sorry,” Yuuri said. “Ticklish?”

“No, just flustered,” Vitya said.

“Flustered?” Yuuri laughed.

“No one’s ever spent so much time touching my face. I don’t know what to make of it,” Vitya said, amused.

Yuuri retracted his fingers, feeling a little embarrassed.

“So what do you make of it?” Vitya asked. “My face, that is.”

“Oh, uh, it seems. Normal,” Yuuri said, and winced at himself.

“Normal? Yuuri were you still expecting horns or fangs or something? I told you I was human!”

“N-no, I just, you know, it’s good to know, um. For sure.”

“Well if you really want to be sure, you ought to check the rest of my body, too. What if I’m hiding scales somewhere on here?” He reached out and caught Yuuri’s hand, and brought it back to his shoulder.

Yuuri could feel the smooth silk of the robe Vitya wore inside the tent, and could also feel the brush of hair against his knuckles. Gingerly, he followed the hair up to the top of Vitya’s head, and then ran his fingers down through it. It went on much longer than he had expected--when he finally reached the ends he was sure he must be at Vitya’s waist. “Your hair--” he said.

“Yes?”

“It, uh--” It was so smooth it felt like running his fingers through water. He felt similes were too close to love poetry, so instead he said, “How do you keep it so long without getting tangled?”

“A hundred strokes with a boar-bristle brush every night.”

Yuuri scoffed. “I’ve never heard you brush your hair. Oh Vitya, it’s magic, isn’t it?”

Vitya giggled again, and Yuuri heard the sound of his back hitting the cushions with a whumpf. “I know, I know, it’s frivolous but my hair is my vanity. I’m not above giving it a little boost. It’s not as if it’s easy to carry a lot of natural oils and scents around when you’re a bear half the time--even if you do have a magical fairy pouch.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Yuuri said, laughing. “So that’s why it smells so nice, too, is it?”

“Don’t laugh; it’s not polite,” Vitya protested through his own laughter.

Yuuri scooted closer, put out his hand, and was able to locate Vitya’s shoulder once more. He swept his hand in closer to Vitya’s neck, and then slid it down the V of the robe. Feeling wildly embarrassed and also absurdly pleased to be touching his husband’s actual skin, Yuuri skimmed lightly over his breast and traced down the lines of Vitya’s ribs.

“Darling…” Vitya said.

“Shh,” Yuuri said. “I’m checking for scales.”

He reached Vitya’s stomach and felt close to laughter again. “I can’t believe you,” he said.

“What?” Vitya said.

“My husband has chiseled abdominals,” Yuuri laughed. “Can I get that from magic, too?”

“But darling,” Vitya said, smile all through his voice, “why would you want to when you have such a cute little belly?” He put out his hand and in fact brushed his fingers against Yuuri’s stomach.

Yuuri flinched back, turning red. “Don’t be mean,” he said.

“What?” Vitya said, “I wasn’t being mean. I really think your belly is cute.”

“Okay,” Yuuri said, feeling a rising shame. What did he think he was doing.

“Yuuri,” Vitya said softly. “I can’t believe you actually don’t think you’re handsome. I’d like to take my bear claws to anyone who has ever made you feel less than stunning.”

Yuuri was too busy trying not to be audible in the midst of his rising irrational panic to hear his words clearly. Next he only knew that he could feel the tingling in his lungs he’d felt the first day he met Vitya, when he’d helped restore his breathing to normal. Suddenly angry at himself for being so obviously a mess, angry at Vitya for presuming to move his lungs without permission, and deeply, hugely embarrassed for being so shamefully forward earlier, he gathered his concentration, and shoved back against the tendrils of Vitya’s magic in his lungs.

Vitya gave a little cry.

“Sorry,” Yuuri said quickly, “I didn’t mean to hurt you, I just--”

“No, no,” Vitya cut in. “You didn’t hurt me, I was just startled. I’m sorry--I understand. I should have asked. I’ll remember that next time.”

Yuuri buried his face in his arms. “It’s okay. Sorry I’m--”

“No apologies, darling,” Vitya said softly, and Yuuri felt like he was melting, wanted to just fall into a pile of mush in Vitya’s lap. “I hope you understand I just don’t like to see you upset. Because I care for you. When you feel bad I want to make it better.”

“No,” Yuuri said. “I--I know you do.” He sighed and lay down. “What kind of magic do you like best?” he asked, anxious to change the subject.

“What kind of music do you like best?” Vitya said.

“Oh, is that a--a metaphor, or something?”

“No,” Vitya laughed. “No, I want to know--it’s important.”

Yuuri smiled. “Very well. Then the music I like best is anything you can dance to.”

“You like dancing?” Vitya asked.

“Yes, you asked me about it before, remember? You still haven’t answered my question.”

“Patience,” Vitya said, and Yuuri could hear the smile in his voice.

Then Yuuri heard something else, floating in the air and gradually growing louder--plucking of strings, and soft notes of a flute, and then they resolved into a melody, bright and lively, that indeed, made Yuuri want to dance, anxiety sliding away as the rhythm lifted his spirit. “Vitya....” he said. “How--?”

Vitya taught him how it was done, how to pull the notes out of the air, and soon Yuuri could do it, too, filling the tent with the sounds of a folk melody from back home that he especially loved.

“Beautiful,” Vitya said. “Just beautiful.”

“Vitya,” Yuuri said. “Do you dance?”

“I--I used to. I haven’t in a long time, for obvious reasons.”

Yuuri got to his feet. “Will you dance with me?”

“I fear I’m rusty--”

“That’s fine,” Yuuri said, and leaned down until he found Vitya’s shoulder, and was then able to grab his hand and pull him to his feet. “I’ll lead.” He focused on the music, and changed it to a slow waltz. “And we’ll go slow.” As an afterthought, he also willed a wooden floor into place beneath their feet to replace the soft cushions.

Silently, they fumbled until their hands were in the right places. “Just follow me,” Yuuri said.

“Of course,” Vitya replied softly, and squeezed the hand he held.

Yuuri moved them gently, his hand on Vitya’s hip guiding him in the right direction. There were a couple times their bare feet knocked into each other, but otherwise they seemed to fit together perfectly. “You’re not that rusty,” he told Vitya.

“Thank you,” Vitya said. “With a good partner, though, it’s hard to have much trouble.”

As Yuuri turned them around and around, he felt more relaxed, and moved closer, and felt Vitya relax into him, too. Slow and simple though it was, it was the best Yuuri had ever felt dancing, and he wanted to know if Vitya felt the same way. If they were really married, if they had had a real wedding, this might have been how it could have felt afterward, dancing for the first time as husbands. If they were really married, this is how it could always be, at festivals and state banquets for the rest of their lives. Stop that, Yuuri scolded himself. Because they weren’t really married. None of this was real. Just pretend. 

But when the song came to its end, Vitya did not let go, and neither did Yuuri. Seized by a desire to know what Vitya’s expression might be, Yuuri dropped Vitya’s hand and reached up to touch his fingers to Vitya’s lips. Vitya smiled against them, and Yuuri smiled back, then remembered Vitya couldn’t see. He moved his hand to cup Vitya’s cheek, and Vitya leaned into the touch, and Yuuri, for reasons he didn’t fully understand, slid his hand down Vitya’s jaw until his thumb brushed over his lower lip, and then Yuuri rose up on his toes and kissed him.

Vitya made a little sound of surprise, then pulled away from Yuuri’s lips. “Yuuri--” he said, “are you kissing me because you want to kiss me? Or just because I’m the only person around.”

“What?” Yuuri said. The idea would never have occurred to him. “No, I’m not like--”

“Well--”

“I’ve never kissed anyone before!” Yuuri exclaimed.

“Wait, really?” Vitya asked. “That was your first kiss?”

Yuuri could feel himself turning an unprecedented shade of red. “Y-yes…”

Vitya gave a light stroke over his waist. “Well, it was mine, too.”

“You?” Yuuri said. “With your chiseled abdominals?” To his relief, it did the trick of breaking the tension.

Vitya laughed. “I told you, I’ve been a bear for a long time now. I’ve spent all my prime kissing years as big scary furry beast.

Yuuri smiled suddenly. “Hey, I kissed you when you were a big scary furry beast, too.”

“That you did,” Vitya said.

“Well hang on, now,” Yuuri said. “Are you only kissing me because I’m the only person you’ve talked to in a decade or whatever it’s been?”

“Technically I haven’t kissed you yet,” Vitya said. “You were the one doing the kissing.”

“Oh,” Yuuri said.

Vitya cradled Yuuri’s face in his hands, and pressed his face in close. “Darling…” he murmured against Yuuri’s lips, and Yuuri’s heart flipped over how big his smile sounded, and then Vitya kissed him. Neither of them was quite certain how to go about it, but then Vitya’s tongue slipped between his lips and it seemed they were getting somewhere.

There was music in his heart--no, in his ears--something slow and lovely, full of yearning. Vitya curled his arm around Yuuri’s waist and took his hand, and drew back from the kiss only so he could pull Yuuri so close they were dancing cheek-to-cheek. Or cheek-to-temple, more accurately, as Vitya was just a little taller.

“I thought you were supposed to be rusty,” Yuuri smiled.

“It’s coming back to me,” Vitya murmured in his ear.

Yuuri felt drunk as he leaned in close, Vitya’s ridiculous enchanted scent--something floral and woodsy--filling each breath. He listened to Vitya’s music, and as he caught the pattern, he cautiously sent out a thread of his own, a countermelody.

Vitya responded by tucking Yuuri closer. “Beautiful,” he said a bit later. “You’re so beautiful.”

A few nights later found them kissing with much greater confidence, and Yuuri was caught between how very wonderful it felt to have Vitya sprawled on top of him, and how very annoying it was that Vitya's hair kept getting between their mouths somehow.

“Vitya, Vitya--” Yuuri laughed. “Wait--sit, sit up--”

Vitya pulled away. Yuuri lurched upright to follow him. He rolled onto his knees, facing Vitya’s direction, and put out his hands to find Vitya’s shoulders, and ran them up to his face. Yuuri stroked the fine hairs back from Vitya’s temples, tucking them behind his ears. After several tries, he felt confident he’d gotten them all, and taking Vitya’s jaw between his palms, kissed him, slower than before. He could feel Vitya’s pulse where his fingers cradled his neck, beating with the same rapid tempo of Yuuri’s own. “That’s better,” Yuuri said.

Vitya laughed softly, and his hands found Yuuri’s legs, then his waist, and gave a gentle tug as he leaned to the side, pulling them both back down to the pillows. Yuuri scooted closer, his hand on Vitya’s side as Vitya rolled onto his back. Yuuri found his face once more, once more cleared the hair from it, and set to the business of kissing Vitya in earnest, as Vitya’s arms wrapped around him, pulling him closer, and hand slid up into his hair and scratched lightly against his scalp.

Later when Vitya was cuddled against Yuuri’s chest and Yuuri was stroking his magically smooth hair, his fingers stilled for a moment. “Hey, Vitya,” he said.

“Mmm?” Vitya hummed sleepily, nuzzling against Yuuri’s neck.

“What color is your hair?” Yuuri asked.

“What color is my anything,” Vitya said. “Does it matter?”

“No,” Yuuri said, laughing. “I was just curious.”

“Well, you’ve seen it,” Vitya said.

“I have?”

“Mm. It’s the same all the time now.”

“You mean it’s white?”

Vitya nodded. “Side effect of the spell, it seems.”

“Really?” Yuuri asked. “What color was it before?”

“Secrets,” Vitya mumbled.

Yuuri shook his head. “Okay,” he said, and fell asleep with his hand still resting against Vitya’s neck.

 

When the Spring began to melt the snow and bright green leaves began poking out of trees, Vitya seemed to become a little agitated and nervous, which did not help Yuuri’s own inclinations at all. “I need to teach you to defend yourself properly, not just against a bit of water,” Vitya said one day. He ran through a litany of ways to not only block attacks, but turn the energy back on the attacker, techniques that would force the attacker to drain their energy without expending too much of your own.

Vitya reared up, preparing to attack, and Yuuri readied himself, when an arrow whistled through the air just above Vitya’s head as he came down on Yuuri, and Yuuri was so distracted he forgot to even throw up a shield and Vitya, looking horribly alarmed, actually hit him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him as he hit the ground. 

“Yuuri, what was that!” Vitya said angrily. “I could have killed you!”

Yuuri tried to recover his breath enough to tell Vitya that he’d been distracted by the person shooting at them, when the hunter announced his presence for him.

“You won’t kill him now,” a voice rang out. “Don’t worry, kid--I’ve got this.”

_Kid? Got this? What--_ Yuuri sorted out that the speaker was referring to him, and his intent to protect Yuuri from an attacking bear, and yelled, “No!” just as another arrow flew past Vitya’s head.  
Yuuri rolled over and clambered out from under Vitya’s legs to stand in front of him, his arms thrown out. “He’s not trying to kill me! It’s okay! Stop trying to kill him, he’s--” Yuuri took in the hunter’s fine horse, somewhat gaudy clothes, and somewhat gaudier crown. “King Jean-Jacques?” he said incredulously.

“Why yes, that’s me, now stand back so I may slay this beast--”

“No, don’t slay him,” Yuuri protested. “He’s my--” husband? that would be too hard to explain right now “--friend. And I’m not a kid Jean-Jacques; I’m older than you.”

“Who are you again?”

Yuuri rolled his eyes. “Prince Yuuri of Hasetsu. We met at your coronation two years ago?”

“Prince Yuuri? Wow I thought you died or something. What are you doing out in the woods with this--monster?”

Behind him, Vitya growled quietly. “That’s--none of your business,” Yuuri said. “I’m fine. He’s fine. We mean you no harm. Can we go now?”

Jean-Jacques only rode closer. “No, hang on, I want to get to the bottom of this. Is it making you say these things? Did it threaten you? Are you a hostage? Come with me,” he said, holding out a hand. “I’ll see you safely back to your own kingdom.”

“No,” Yuuri said. “I’m not any of those things. Vitya is my teacher. He’s a magician and he’s teaching me magic. I’m traveling with him as part of my apprenticeship. That’s all.”

“It’s a bear,” Jean-Jacques said, as if that fact had perhaps gone unnoticed by anyone else present.

“Yes,” said Vitya, speaking for the first time since the king’s arrival. “I’m a bear. I believe Yuuri is familiar with a variety of animal species and can identify a bear when he sees one. If you think otherwise then I must be offended on behalf of my student.”

Between Vitya’s spirited--if unnecessary--defense of his intellect, and Jean-Jacques’s astonishment at hearing the bear talk, Yuuri had to struggle quite a bit to keep a straight face.

“What are you learning magic for,” he asked next, still staring at Vitya. “Is that what you do when you’re not destined for the throne?”

Now Yuuri felt truly peeved. “Everyone knows Victor Tsarevich was a magician, and he was supposed to inherit an empire before he died, so obviously that’s not true.”

Jean-Jacques scoffed. “Yeah, well Prince Victor was such an idiot he died from falling off a completely tame horse from what I--” Jean-Jacques and his horse froze.

Yuuri had had quite enough. The spell would wear off in only a few minutes, so he and Vitya needed to get going at once. Otherwise, he might have stayed long enough to do something childish, like stuff poison sumac down the king’s boots. “Come on, Vitya,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.” He turned and saw Vitya still staring at Jean-Jacques. Yuuri waved a hand in front of Vitya’s eyes, and he blinked and looked down at Yuuri. “Oh, good,” Yuuri said. “I was afraid I’d accidentally frozen you, too.”

Vitya shook his head.

Yuuri put a hand up to his cheek. “Vitya, are you okay?”

Vitya nodded, then crouched low. “You’d better ride so we can move faster,” he said.

“Sure,” Yuuri said, climbing up and giving Vitya a little pat on the neck to let him know he was ready.

Vitya was completely silent for the rest of the day. After they had ridden for a little while, it occurred to Yuuri that Vitya might be angry with him for not reacting in time to fend off Vitya’s mock attack earlier. Maybe Vitya felt guilty for knocking him down. “Hey, Vitya,” he said, “I--you know I’m okay, right? From earlier. You didn’t hurt me.”

“Good,” Vitya said after a moment.

“Sorry I screwed up--I’ll pay more attention next time, I promise.”

“I know.”

Yuuri licked his lips. “I was just distracted by the arrow. You’re okay, right? I didn’t think he actually hit you, but--”

“I’m okay,” Vitya said.

Seeing that Vitya intended to respond to any question with the fewest words necessary, Yuuri gave up and let him be. Absently, he combed his fingers through Vitya’s fur as they rode on. Yuuri had certainly had days when he felt like the way Vitya was behaving right now, and he understood, even if he couldn’t understand why Yuuri’s mistake in their training earlier had brought it on. Or maybe it was the encounter with Jean-Jacques--Yuuri wasn’t sure.

When they stopped for the night, Vitya was still in a mood, and Yuuri was still worried about it. Before he went into the tent, he gave Vitya a little hug. “See you inside? I mean, not, ‘see’ you, but, you know--”

Vitya nodded, not really looking at him.

Yuuri waited in the tent for he knew not how long, every second agonizing as his worry over Vitya’s absence grew. At last, he could take it no longer--he rose and went to the door of the tent and stood just inside of it. “Vitya?” he called. “Are you out here?”

After a long pause, Vitya replied with a quiet “Yes.”

Yuuri took a deep breath. “Are you coming to bed? I’m worried about you being out there--what if someone were to come by and see you?”

A longer pause, and then Vitya said, “I’ll be in shortly.”

Yuuri backed off from the entrance, and waited. A minute later, he heard Vitya enter the tent and pull on his robe. Yuuri stumbled toward him at once, half tripping over a cushion and then catching himself on Vitya’s waist. Yuuri could feel his skin through the thin fabric, and it felt like ice. “Vitya,” he said urgently, “you’re so cold! Why did you stay out there so long? Why didn’t you at least cast a spell to warm yourself?” As he spoke, Yuuri willed gentle tendrils of heat from his palms into Vitya’s cold skin.

Vitya said nothing, but Yuuri could hear an intake of breath that sounded a bit wet, as if he was crying. 

Yuuri felt sick and frightened. “Vitya, what’s wrong?”

Vitya pulled away from his grasp and Yuuri heard him sit down somewhere further back in the tent.

Yuuri felt his own eyes spill over with tears. “Did I do something wrong?” he asked, desperately.

“No, Yuuri, you did nothing wrong,” said Vitya, his own voice broken.

Yuuri walked back to him, and sat down at his side. “Vitya, please, what is it? Let me help you.” He rested one hand lightly on Vitya’s back, fearful he would pull away again.

“I just wish I could give you a better life. The life you deserve.”

Yuuri frowned. “What would that be?”

“You deserve to be rescued from monsters by a handsome king, not by another monster. You deserve a husband who would give you a comfortable palace instead of dragging you endlessly through the forest, a featherbed instead of a tent, who could hold your hand in the daylight. You deserve a husband who isn’t a bear most of the time, and invisible at night.”

“You’re not a monster,” Yuuri said quietly, and pulled Vitya into his arms. “You may be those other things, but you are not a monster.” He still felt cold, so Yuuri once more focused on pouring heat into Vitya’s body through his embrace. Yuuri found himself on the verge of laughter all of a sudden. “And I can’t believe you’re actually jealous of King Jean-Jacques! Is that all this is about?”

“You could have gone with him,” Vitya mumbled.

“But I didn’t,” Yuuri said. “I never would. I made you a promise, Vitya, and I have no intention of breaking it. I’m not leaving you.”

Vitya carefully rested his head against Yuuri’s chest. “I would understand if you did.”

“I don’t think he even likes men,” Yuuri said. “And even if he did, he is not at all my type.”

“Your type is magician princes.”

Yuuri laughed and squeezed Vitya tight. “No, forget about magician princes. My type is magicians who are bears most of the time, and invisible at night.”

That, at last, coaxed a short laugh out of Vitya, who hugged Yuuri back, and allowed him to pull them down and wrap a thick comforter around the both of them. “Is that so?” Vitya asked, and Yuuri put a hand over his mouth, and Vitya smiled against it.

Yuuri pressed a kiss to Vitya’s cheek, and then smiled against it himself. “The only sort of person I’d ever want to marry,” he said.

Later, Vitya awoke with a gasp and a weak cry, and Yuuri had him in his arms at once, smoothing his hands over his back and stroking his hair. “Oh, Yuuri,” Vitya said, and he felt like he was shaking.

Yuuri didn’t need to ask this time, what had woken him. “I’m here,” he said. “I’m right here, Vitya. I didn’t leave. I’ll never leave you.” He flinched a little in his slow strokes across Vitya’s back, realizing all at once, with unbreakable certainty, that he meant it. He had no intention of leaving Vitya when their year was over, not unless Vitya really wanted him to. He couldn’t. Vitya, so powerful and yet so fragile, his tender and funny husband. “Never,” he repeated. I love you. He formed the words with his mouth, but could not yet bring himself to say them aloud.

Vitya curled into him, and Yuuri did not let go as they both returned to sleep.

 

After the incident with King Jean-Jacques, Yuuri began to touch Vitya more, both night and day, realizing that Vitya craved reassurance that Yuuri meant to stay, and noticing that touch seemed to calm him when he was agitated or sad. Yuuri still felt shy about telling Vitya just how much he loved him, so he told him with his hands, instead. He scratched Vitya’s shoulders when riding on his back during the day, he smoothed over the fur on his cheeks and forehead and kissed them softly. In the dark, he reached for Vitya’s hand while they sat and talked and traced patterns on his forearms. He pushed Vitya’s robe off his shoulders and rubbed his hands up and down his back while they kissed. He fell asleep every night with his arms around Vitya, or Vitya’s arms around him, or both. 

One night as they lay talking, interspersed with kisses, or perhaps the other way around, Yuuri went to kiss Vitya’s cheek and found it damp. “Vitya?” he said, and found Vitya’s hand with his. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Vitya said softly. “Nothing is wrong when I’m with you.”

Yuuri squeezed his hand. “Vitya…”

“Being with you, Yuuri, I forget everything--my past, the curse, all of it. You make me feel like a real human. I never thought I could have anything that felt like this…”

Yuuri felt tears well in his eyes, too, and he rubbed his cheek against Vitya’s, their tears mingling as they held each other tight. 

Vitya gave him everything in return, and more. All the hesitations from their earlier days vanished, and now Vitya seemed to always be in his lap and combing his fingers through Yuuri’s hair, or wrapped around him from behind and kissing his neck while one hand smoothed over his stomach. Whether man or bear, Vitya took to randomly head-butting him gently in the back and then resting his chin on Yuuri’s shoulder. Yuuri felt delirious with how much he adored Vitya, and how much Vitya adored him. He hated himself for thinking something so saccharine, but he felt more like a prince around Vitya than he ever had in the castle.

“I want to take care of you forever,” he murmured against Vitya’s temple one night, scraping back his hair with slow strokes. “I want to give you the life you deserve.”

 

One evening, the fairy pouch saw fit to give them bowls of katsudon, Yuuri’s favorite dish from back home. Tears sprang into his eyes as soon as he smelled it. “Ah-ha,” he said. “Time for your chopstick lessons, Vitya.”

The difficulty of teaching that skill in the dark became immediately apparent. Yuuri eventually scooted up behind Vitya’s back until Vitya was pretty much sitting in his lap, and then stuck his right arm through beneath Vitya’s so that Vitya could feel the position of his fingers around the chopsticks from the correct angle and try to replicate it. Yuuri laughed, his chin resting on Vitya’s shoulder as Vitya struggled through it. Once he was able to verify that Vitya was holding them correctly he tried to talk him through how to pick up food with it.

“Our food is going to get cold, Yuuri,” Vitya whined, though he didn’t really seem too upset. “Can’t I just use a fork?”

“Vitya, keeping food warm is like the easiest spell there is, so don’t give me that excuse.”

“I’m hungryyyy,” Vitya whimpered.

Yuuri smoothed his left hand over Vitya’s stomach. “Learn quicker, then,” he grinned. “You need to learn how to eat katsudon properly if you’re going to be the husband of a prince of Hasetsu.”

Victor got it eventually, and had nothing but praise for the food, and when they were both finished Yuuri felt utterly warm and content. He snuggled against Vitya’s chest, twining their legs together, and let Vitya tug out the cord holding up his short ponytail and card through his hair.

“Did you really mean it?” Vitya asked softly.

“Mean what,” Yuuri mumbled, distracted by how nice Vitya’s fingers felt in his hair.

“That--thing you said about being the husband of a prince of Hasetsu. Do you really think I could come live with you when the spell is broken?”

Yuuri stiffened. “I--I mean, do you want to?” he said. “Don’t you want to,” he added fearfully.

“Darling, I want that very much,” Vitya said. “I would love to be your Prince Vitya.”

Yuuri relaxed against him once more, making Vitya laugh a little. “Of course I meant it,” Yuuri said. “We could have a proper royal wedding, where you can actually wear your ring on your finger, and I can really kiss you, and you can wear formal robes and not--whatever this is,” he laughed, fingering the lapel of Vitya’s silk dress robe.

“What if I turn out to be someone you don’t want to marry, though,” Vitya asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what if I’m not royalty? Will that not be a problem?”

“Not important,” Yuuri said.

“Well, what if I’m ugly.”

Yuuri laughed. “You’re not ugly, Vitya.”

“I might be!” Vitya protested. “You don’t know that.”

“You’re a very beautiful bear,” Yuuri told him, trying to sound as serious as possible.

“I’m serious, Yuuri.”

“I am, too,” Yuuri said. “I don’t think I could ever think you were ugly, no matter what you looked like. But even if you were, that wouldn’t be important either.”

“It wouldn’t?”

“I’m not a very, um. Physically-oriented person? I don’t care what people look like.”

Vitya snorted. “I don’t know; you seemed pretty excited about my ‘chiseled abdominals.’”

Yuuri laughed. “Well, sure, but that’s because they’re yours. If they were on anyone else I wouldn’t even notice them.”

“Really?”

“Mmhm.”

“What makes me special?” Vitya teased, twirling a lock of Yuuri’s hair around his finger.

“Well, I like you,” Yuuri smiled, and kissed Vitya’s chest, his hand sliding down to Vitya’s waist.

“You like me?” Vitya laughed.

“Shhh,” Yuuri said.

“And you only notice someone’s looks if you like them?”

“Feels, I guess, in your case,” Yuuri said, tracing the outline of Vitya’s aforementioned muscles with a light touch of his finger.

Vitya’s stomach jumped, and he giggled involuntarily before Yuuri heard him clap his hands over his mouth.

Yuuri froze. “Vitya,” he said. “You are ticklish.”

“Nope,” Vitya said, muffled behind his hands.

Yuuri grinned and tapped his fingers lightly against Vitya’s side. Vitya gave a very small shriek and said “No, no, no,” before dissolving into helpless giggles. Yuuri explored further and found that Vitya's knees were sensitive as well, but they were also rather dangerous. After Vitya's delirious convulsions led to Yuuri taking a knee directly to his face, he agreed to a truce. Vitya apologized for his wayward knees, still laughing, and soothed magic into the bruise, then said, “That was very mean, though.”

“Yes, I'm sorry,” Yuuri said, now the one shaking with laughter.

“You won't just forget about this, will you?”

“No,” Yuuri said. “Never.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. Happy Project for Awesome!


	7. Chapter 7

The third time a beast came near, Yuuri was used to the routine. As soon as he saw Vitya’s ears start to twitch in alarm, he said, “Beast?”

“Yes,” Vitya said. “Please--”

“Stay here, don’t move, promise,” Yuuri recited. “I promise Vitya. Try not to come back bleeding this time, alright?”

Vitya lowered his head and bumped against Yuuri’s chest. Yuuri put his arms around Vitya’s neck and pressed a kiss to the top of his head, and then Vitya was off again.

As before, Yuuri waited, even as the distant sounds filled him with rising anxiety. He heard a cry of pain that sounded distinctly like Vitya, and winced. Then he heard another and began to properly panic. When he heard Vitya scream a third time, he decided that some promises must be worth breaking. He took off in a run toward the sound of combat.

Bursting out onto a shallow, rocky bend of the river, he saw, as if posed in a painting, Vitya lying bleeding on the rocks, turning the water around him red; above him a massive creature with the head of an eagle, bat’s wings, and a lion’s body with oversized front claws rearing above him. Whether dead or unconscious, Yuuri didn’t have time to find out. Just before the beast could descend on Vitya for another blow, Yuuri threw out a shield above him. The beast’s front paws were repelled back, throwing it off balance enough that it fell over sideways.

Yuuri took advantage of the creature’s momentary confusion at facing a second opponent, and knowing he probably only had one chance, put everything he had into calling down a lightning bolt onto the creature the way Vitya had once demonstrated. No doubt because Vitya had managed to weaken it before he went down, the strike appeared to finish it, and Yuuri saw it go up in smoke like the cats had the first day they met.

Yuuri rushed to Vitya’s side and could see at once that while he seemed to be bleeding all over, the worst damage was taken when Vitya’s head had struck a rock when he fell. Yuuri placed his hand over Vitya’s wound, willing the blow to heal. “Please don’t die, please don’t die, please don’t die,” he whispered as he desperately knit bone and blood and skin back together. Vitya at last began to take deeper, steadier breaths. Yuuri moved on to the rest of his injuries, adrenaline driving him to keep going as the day wore on, when his magic should otherwise have been utterly drained after how much it had taken to destroy the monster.

Vitya stirred into consciousness, and Yuuri heaved a sigh of relief, until he saw the look of wild terror in the bear’s eyes. Yuuri knew he’d made a terrible mistake a split second before it happened, but it was already too late. The sun dipped below the horizon, and Vitya transformed.

In place of a white bear was a young man with pale skin and long, white hair. Their eyes met, and Vitya burst into tears. “No,” he said, curling in on himself. “How could you? We were so close--” The tears overwhelmed him, and he buried his face in his hands.

“Vitya?” Yuuri said. “Vitya, I'm sorry, but that thing was going to kill you, I couldn't stay back and let it happen--”

“And now you have killed me,” Vitya said from behind his hands. “It's all over.”

“No,” said Yuuri, “no, I'll marry you again, I'll do whatever it takes--”

“It's too. late.”

Vitya’s shoulders shook, whether from tears or the cold Yuuri didn't know, but he unclasped his cloak and draped it over Vitya's back. As he did so, clothes appeared on Vitya’s body--tall black boots, fine breeches, a violet doublet with designs picked out in gold embroidery. He looked like a prince, though the years spent out of the sun made his skin look wan and sickly. It was so strange to actually be able to see him, though Yuuri had still not had much of a chance to see his face, because Vitya still had it buried in his hands.

“I’m so sorry,” Yuuri whispered, terrified. “Vitya, I’m so sorry. Whatever happens now, I--I’m sorry I failed you.”

Vitya at last rose up to sit, and raised his gaze to Yuuri’s, blue eyes rimmed in red. “Yuuri,” he said. “I can’t be angry with you for saving my life, even--under the circumstances.” Tears rolled down his cheeks once more. “At least now I get to say goodbye--” 

“No,” Yuuri said, “no, we don’t have to say goodbye at all--”

Vitya sighed. Absentmindedly, he pulled Yuuri’s cloak tighter around his shoulders. “Yuuri, we don’t have long, they’ll be here at midnight--”

“They? Who’s they?”

“The fairies,” Vitya said. “My stepfather sold my heart to them and now they know where I am, and they will come to claim me.”

“Your stepfather did this to you? Vitya, that’s--”

“Horrible?” Vitya said dully. “What’s it like to have a happy family.”

Yuuri put his hand on Vitya’s shoulder. “Why would he do that?”

“We didn’t exactly have a conversation about it. We never got along. I’m sure he knew I would keep him from holding any power in the empire once I came of age, and he always loved power far more than he loved me. My little cousin overheard him talking of what he’d done, and ran to warn me. I rode my horse to the woods, then cast a spell on a fallen log to look like my body, then a spell on myself to turn me into a bear, and that is how it’s been. ”

“The--the empire…”

A smile flickered across Vitya’s mouth, as he inspected his fingernails. “What, you don’t recognize the one and only love of your life? I’m hurt.”

“V--” Yuuri processed the profile of Vitya’s face, his nose, the eyes-- “Victor?” he finished, barely audible.

“Yes?” Victor said.

Yuuri stared. “You’ve been a bear all this time?--no, hang on, you did this to yourself? I thought someone cursed you. I mean--I thought you were dead; I thought someone cursed, um. Vitya.”

Victor looked over at him. “I had to hide. Fairy magic is powerful, but it has limitations. You can hide things from them sometimes, if you do it right. They couldn’t find me, as a bear. And they could not find me as a man as long as no one saw me…”

Yuuri felt sick with guilt. “I’m so sorry.”

Victor shook his head. “It was foolish of me to think any of this could end well. Even my stepfather only delayed the inevitable--Georgi Popovich overthrew him in a coup two years ago, or so I’ve heard.”

Yuuri nodded. “He had Tsar Koschey beheaded.”

“See, that’s why you never bargain with fairies,” Victor said.

Yuuri sat back. “You must have thought I was mad. The roses--your roses--that crazy thing I said about how you were the only person I’d ever thought of marrying--”

“Oh, I thought it was pretty cute, really,” Victor said, and when he turned to meet Yuuri’s eyes again, a real smile had broken across his face, and it was every bit as adorable as when Yuuri first saw it, staring in awe at his own magic almost a decade ago. “Yuuri....” Victor shifted onto his hip to face him, and reached out to brush his fingers along his jaw. “You might wonder, why I would risk my true form being seen, if as a bear I could always be safe.”

Yuuri swallowed and gave a small nod.

“I didn’t want to run forever, and I knew of only one way that I could be free. Where I come from, tradition says that if a marriage lasts a year and a day, and all parties are still in love, then your hearts belong to each other for life. It’s not--literally true, of course, marriages end at any time. But traditions can have power, when it comes to fairy magic. And to love.”

“Oh,” said Yuuri softly.

“If I could persuade someone to fall in love with me and stay with me a year and a day, then my heart would not belong to the fairies, no matter how much they gave my stepfather for it. It would belong to you.”

“You only asked me to marry you for a year though, so it wouldn’t count--”

“Yes, well I was hoping that after a year, you would not want to leave. That was why--I had to know. I had to know that if you stayed that one more day, it was for love and not for duty.”

“Well, I do want to stay. I don’t want to leave.”

“But now you must. Yuuri, I wish--I wish that you would stay forever. I fell for you quite some time ago. But that is why you must not, you absolutely cannot stay any longer--if you die because of me I will not be able to bear it.”

“Vit--Victor--” Yuuri began.

“You can keep calling me Vitya,” he said. “If you like. It’s like a--a cute nickname for Victor. I like hearing you call me Vitya.”

Yuuri nodded, unable to smile. “Did you--did you remember me? Did you know who I was when you met me in the woods?”

Vitya’s eyes softened. “Yes. Of course I remembered you,” he said, brushing Yuuri’s hair behind his ear.

“From your mother’s wedding?”

“Mmhm. You were the only one I gave a rose to, weren’t you?” He smiled.

“Why did you do that, anyway?”

“I saw you looking sad that you didn’t catch one, and I was determined to put a smile back on your face.”

Yuuri blinked. “Really?”

Vitya kept smiling at him, ever so fondly. “The truth is, I was actually hoping to impress you.”

“Impress me! I was eight, why would you want to impress me?”

Victor shrugged. “I never had any other children to play with, growing up, and at that wedding you and you sister were the guests there closest to my own age. I thought, you know. Maybe if you liked my magic, you’d want to talk to me, and then maybe we could be friends…”

“I did like your magic. I did want to be friends.”

“I see that. I’m sorry I--never took the chance to talk to you properly, but I wasn’t allowed.”

“I wanted to write you,” Yuuri said. “About the rose, what happened to it. I must have scribbled at least a dozen attempts, but I was always too shy to send it. I thought you would think it was stupid, or impertinent.”

“I wish you had,” said Victor. “I wish I’d written to you, too. Perhaps I wouldn’t even be in this predicament to begin with, if I had had a Yuuri looking out for me all this time.”

Yuuri took Victor’s hands in his. “Well I’m looking out for you now. And I won’t let the fairies take you.”

Victor pushed back at him, though Yuuri refused to give up his grip. “Yuuri, you must--even we together are not strong enough to fight them like this.”

“I won’t leave you.”

“No,” Victor shook his head. “Please go home, Yuuri. Go home to your family. Forget about me.”

“I can’t. Vitya--you are my family.” Yuuri looked up, blinking back tears. “You’re my husband.”

“Oh, darling,” Victor whispered, and pulled Yuuri into his arms.

They wept together, Victor crying, “It’s not fair--this isn’t fair,” into Yuuri’s shoulder, while Yuuri said, “Please don’t make me leave you.”

At last, Victor pushed him back once more, and Yuuri knelt beside him, feeling entirely defeated. Victor pulled Yuuri’s cloak off his shoulders, and handed it back. Yuuri held it loosely, unable to look him in the eye. Then Victor reached beneath his doublet and pulled out the fairy pouch, and then the chain that held his wedding ring. He held out the pouch to Yuuri.

“Take this, okay? I won’t need it.”

Yuuri took it, thumbing the soft leather. “Vitya--”

Victor held the wedding ring in his fingers, turning it over and over, and then held that out to Yuuri, too.

“No,” Yuuri said, finally looking up, “Please, please don’t ask me to take it back. It’s yours.”

Victor shook his head. “The fairies will only steal it from me. I’d rather know it’s safe with you.”

Yuuri wiped tears from his cheeks, then took the ring at last with shaking fingers.

“My handsome prince,” Victor said, and reached out to cup his cheek. “My darling. I don’t want you to get yourself hurt trying to rescue me, but--” he dropped his hand and then pushed his hair back with it. “I--I do actually wish I might be rescued…” He closed Yuuri’s fingers around the ring on its chain. “So keep this safe for me,” he said. “And maybe, maybe if someday you find a way to get to Fairyland safely--maybe you can give it back to me.”

Yuuri hung the chain around his neck and tucked the ring beneath his shirt, and put the fairy pouch in his bag. Then he leaned forward and kissed Victor. “I will, Vitya,” he said fiercely. “I will.”

“And maybe--” Vitya said. “Maybe we could--try this again? The normal way.”

Yuuri kissed him again, and didn’t want to stop. Why couldn’t they just have this. Yuuri would have lived out of the tent with Victor as a bear half the time for the rest of his life if they could only be allowed to keep kissing.

“Yuuri--” Victor said, pulling back. The warbling yowl of another hunting beast sounded in the distance. “Yuuri, you have to go. You have to go. You can’t be here when they come for me. Okay? Get as far away from here as you can. Don’t look back, darling.”

Yuuri pressed a kiss to Victor’s forehead, stroking back his hair. “Okay,” he said, screwing his eyes shut as if that would hold the tears back. “But I’m going to find you. I promise. I won’t let you down again.” He rose, and holding his hand over his mouth to hold in his sob, he turned to leave.

“Yuuri, wait--”

“I thought you said not to look back,” Yuuri laughed through his tears. He turned around, and saw that Victor held a blue rose in his fingers.

“For you, Your Highness,” said Victor quietly.

Fresh tears on his cheeks, Yuuri took it from him. “Vitya--”

“For old time’s sake,” Victor said. Then added, “This one is different, however. Do you see?”

Yuuri looked at the rose, and saw that it pulsed from within with a soft blue-white light. “Vitya, what is this?”

“My heart,” said Victor, tapping at his chest. “Seeing as it ought to be yours anyway,” he said with a sad smile.

Yuuri looked from the softly pulsing light of the rose and back to Victor. “Your heartbeat…,” he said.

“You don’t need to worry about keeping this one alive yourself,” said Victor. “I will do that for you. Its life is tied to mine--if the light fades, then my heart has stopped beating. That way, you will know when to stop looking for me, because there will no longer be any husband to rescue.”

“Oh, Vitya…” Yuuri ran back to his side and threw his arms around him. “Vitya, I can’t do this, I can’t--”

“Yuuri, promise me. Promise me that you will give yourself a life if you cannot save mine. I do not want to die fearing that I have doomed you, too.”

 _You have, Vitya. You have_ , Yuuri thought, but if it would pain Victor to hear it, then he would keep his mouth shut. Instead, he just kissed Victor desperately, terrified that it was for the last time. “I love you,” he murmured against Victor’s lips.

“I love you, too,” Victor whispered, then pushed him away. “Yuuri, they are coming. You have to go, now. You promised me...”

Tears blurring his vision, Yuuri kissed Victor’s forehead one last time, then rose, and ran.

 

Yuuri ran until his legs could carry him no further, and in a small clearing he pulled the fabric block from the fairy pouch, and tossed it to the ground, and there was the tent. When he stepped inside, the darkness was as thick as ever. Yuuri threw out his hand and cast golden lights into the space, and saw the tent as it truly was for the first time. It was a startling riot of color, all warm red and gold and umber. To his left, a hook floated in midair, and upon it hung Vitya's robe. The silk was painted all over with birds and flowers in every color imaginable. A sharp pain struck Yuuri through the heart. He lay down his things and undressed, then slipped the robe on. Wrapping it tight around himself, he lay down and buried himself in the cushions, heart heavy with guilt. 

The blue rose’s light pulsed rapidly, and Yuuri thought, with wretched despair, how frightened Victor must be. He cried himself to sleep with Vitya's enchanted scent still clinging to every object around him, cedar and roses.

 

The following morning, Yuuri began the long trek back to Hasetsu. He knew not where else to begin his search for Fairyland, and could only think that perhaps Minako, who had traveled the whole world, might be able to help. No longer forced to keep to the woods, Yuuri used an old guiding spell that Minako taught him to find the nearest town, where he bought a horse. It took two weeks of riding to get back home, though ‘home’ did not seem like the right word for Hasetsu now. What was home without Victor in it?

The weight on Yuuri’s chest made him feel ill and tired and part of him longed to just sink into his own bed after months and months away and sleep until the end of time. But there could be no rest for him, not yet. Not while Victor remained alive and captive. The desperate fluttering at the rose’s heart that first night had been replaced by a steady and slower beat that seemed to vary little. Yuuri wondered if perhaps the fairies had put Victor in an enchanted sleep.

The second that Yuuri entered the castle, he went straight to Minako’s annex, not even bothering to greet his family first. He missed them, desperately, but they had to wait. Everything had to wait. The face that answered Yuuri’s panicked knock, however, was not Minako, but her apprentice Yuuko.

“Prince Yuuri!” she cried. “I can’t believe you’re home! Where’s the bear?”

Yuuri felt his lip begin to tremble.

“Oh no,” Yuuko said, more softly. “What happened?”

Yuuri took a deep breath. “I can’t--not right now. Where’s Minako? I need to see her.”

Yuuko shook her head. “I think she’s probably up at the castle. You really need to go there anyway--this kid from the Nikiforovan Empire just showed up yesterday and he’s been demanding to see you.”

“What--me? Why?”

Yuuko shrugged. “He won’t say. Minako’s probably trying to get something out of him with your sister right now.”

“What’s his name?” Yuuri asked.

Yuuko smiled. “It’s funny, actually--he says his name is Yuuri, too.”


	8. Chapter 8

Yuuri didn’t know what to think. “What? Who is he?”

“He claims he’s a relative of the old Empress, but that’s all we’ve been able to get out of him.”

Yuuri thought through the possibilities. Victor had mentioned a younger cousin that warned him about his stepfather’s betrayal--maybe this was he. In that case, if he yet remained loyal to Victor, then he might be persuaded to help with Yuuri’s quest as well. The thought occurred to him that the other Yuuri might even have come to Hasetsu for that purpose, though how he would have known of Victor’s disappearance so soon was a mystery. “Very well,” he said at last. “Thank you, Yuuko. I will see what I can learn from him.”

“Sure,” she said. “Yuuri, are you okay?” She put a hand on his arm, a familiarity earned by their years training together under Minako. “If there’s anything I can do, just let me know, alright?”

Yuuri nodded. “I will. Thank you.”

Taking his leave of Yuuko, Yuuri next jogged to the castle and guards hastily sprung to announce his entrance as he strode into his sister’s office. Mari and Minako were both there, and sitting across Mari’s desk from them was a slight young man with yellow hair and a sullen expression.

Mari and Minako rose at once to greet him. The youth in the chair craned his head over his shoulder and _hmph_ ed without leaving his seat.

“Yuuri, what happened?” Mari asked. “It hasn’t been a year yet--where’s your Vitya?”

Yuuri looked among the three of them, unsure how to speak. “I--”

“He screwed up,” said the youth. “Victor’s gone, and it’s his fault.” He jabbed a thumb in Yuuri’s direction.

“Victor--?” said Minako.

“S-sorry, who are you?” Yuuri asked.

The youth at last hauled himself to his feet and strode up to stand right in Yuuri’s face. “Lord Yuri of Nikiforova. Victor’s cousin.”

“Ahhahh, nice to meet you,” Yuuri squeaked, quite discombobulated by the other Yuri’s cold, accusing glare.

“We’re calling him Yurio,” said Mari.

“No, we’re not,” said Yuri.

“Yuuri--Victor?” Minako asked.

Yuuri gulped, and nodded. “Vitya. The bear--he was Victor.”

“And he was relying on you to break his curse!” Yurio yelled. “It was supposed to be easy! Why can’t you follow a simple instruction?”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry--I was trying to save him, and I forgot--”

“Phtegh,” said the other Yuri with unbridled disgust.

“What are you even doing here,” Yuuri asked, rubbing his face, and unwilling to tolerate much more of Victor’s cousin’s insolence.

Yurio huffed and crossed his arms. “I’m taking you to Fairyland, that’s what. Pack your things and let’s go.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Move that fat ass of yours.”

Yuuri rolled his eyes. “Wait just a minute--how do you know the way to Fairyland?”

Yurio scowled.

“No, why do you need to go to Fairyland?” asked Mari.

“Vitya’s there--Victor,” Yuuri said. “Yurio’s right--”

Yurio grumbled wordlessly.

“--I screwed up, I ruined everything, and the fairies stole him away, but I’m going to save him.” Yuuri turned to his old tutor. “Lady Minako, it’s why I came back--I wondered, because you travelled so much, maybe you knew--?”

Minako shook her head. “No, I’m sorry, Yuuri. I saw the world, but I never did see Fairyland. I do have one clue for you, though.” She reached out and grabbed Yurio’s ear, and he yelled.

Where her ring had touched him, the skin was red and faintly smoking.

“Minako!” Mari and Yuuri cried in unison.

“What?” Minako said with a shrug. “He’ll be fine.” She blew at Yurio’s ear and the burn healed at once.

Yurio rubbed it, and glared at her.

“Anyway,” she said. “Iron. Changeling.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Yurio said at Mari and Yuuri’s quizzical looks. “It’s not a big deal. But I can get you in. Probably. But you have to promise not to tell anyone, okay?”

“Sure,” Yuuri said, feeling moved by Yurio’s offer of help, no matter how bitterly given. “I promise.” Mari and Minako nodded their agreement. “Thank you for doing this, Lord Yuri. Victor’s lucky to have family who still care about him. It was you, wasn’t it? Who warned him about his stepfather?”

Yurio nodded.

Yuuri nodded back. “I’m ready as soon as you are.”

“Fine,” said Yurio. “Where’d you put the dog?” he demanded of Mari.

 

Mari sent a servant to bring the King and Queen, and when they arrived, they were followed by a big, curly-haired poodle. On entering the room, the poodle bounded up to Yurio and gave him a big lick on his face.

“Yeugh, get off me, stupid mutt,” he said, shoving it away only to have the poodle keep licking his hand.

“Is it--uh, yours?” Yuuri asked.

“No, of course not, I hate dogs. It’s Victor’s. It followed me when I left and now it won’t--leave me--alone-- _Makkachin, BAD DOG_ \--”

“Makkachin?” Yuuri said.

At the sound of his name, the dog turned his head to Yuuri, and then immediately launched himself into his arms, knocking him to the ground. Yuuri laughed as Makkachin licked his face. “Hey there,” he said fondly, playing with the dog’s big, floppy ears. “No, you’re a good dog, aren’t you? Yes, you are…”

Yurio _hmph_ ed. “Just keep it away from me while we’re traveling, okay?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Yuuri said, smiling up at Makkachin and just trying not to breathe through his nose. The big, playful creature seemed like exactly the sort of pet he would have expected Vitya to have. He wondered why Vitya never said anything about having a dog. “Okay can you please maybe get off me now?” he asked.

Makkachin made a soft _boof_ and backed up, unpinning Yuuri from his paws.

Yurio grumbled, and Yuuri sat up and patted Makkachin on his head. “Good boy,” he said.

“Are we going or not,” Yurio said, crossing his arms.

“Sure, of course, we’re going,” Yuuri replied. Belatedly, he greeted his parents, and told them what had happened in as few words as he could manage.

“I told that bear to take care of you,” the Queen said, somewhat sadly..

“He did,” Yuuri said, touching the rose pinned at his breast, still glowing. “He took really good care of me. And now he needs my help.”

Both of his parents nodded, and wished him luck upon his quest as their son left them again for the third time.

 

On leaving the city, Yurio led them down to the river, and they walked along its bank for miles.

“So, where are we going?” Yuuri asked. At Yurio’s scornful glare, Yuuri added, “--specifically? Like, where is the door to Fairyland?”

“It’s in a rock somewhere,” Yurio grumbled. “I’ll know it when I see it.”

“Sure,” Yuuri nodded. “Okay.”

“Once we’re inside, you have to do whatever I tell you, okay?”

“I do?” said Yuuri.

“Anything in there will eat your heart as soon as look at you,” Yurio said. “You won’t get anywhere without my help.”

Yurio’s tone suggested he found the idea of Yuuri’s heart being eaten just a little bit compelling, but Yuuri chose to ignore it. “Fine,” he said. “Whatever you tell me. I’ll do it.”

After they had walked in silence a while longer, Yuuri said, “Listen, you know I’m really sorry about Victor. I feel terrible about what happened, and I would do anything to save him now. I love him more than anything in the world.”

Makkachin rubbed his face against Yuuri’s pant leg as they walked.

Yurio mumbled something indistinct.

“Have you ever been in love?” Yuuri asked.

“No,” said Yurio. “It sounds terrible.”

 

Yurio found The Rock just at sundown. The orange hue painted one side of the great stone, and cast the other in blackest shadow. “Through there,” Yurio said, pointing to the shadowed side.

“Sure,” Yuuri said. “Of course. The scary-looking part.”

“Don’t be a baby,” said Yurio.

“Are you sure this is safe?” Yuuri asked. “Look, Makka doesn’t like it.” The dog was hiding behind Yuuri’s legs and whining quietly.

Yurio answered with a rough shove, and Yuuri tripped forward into the shadow. The world spun until he felt he was going to be sick, and then everything stopped, and he was on his feet beside the same rock, and the same river. Aside from the rock and the river, however, all the world looked different. Rolling hills where the land had been flat, trees with different shapes, and the color of the light was twilight indigo, but brighter, somehow, as if the stars and the moon were closer, shining brighter than normal, though still less bright than the sun--had the sun been there.

Yuuri stared about in wonder, before he heard a bark and Makkachin appeared at his side, followed quickly by Yurio.

“Good boy,” said Yuuri absently, reaching to pat Makka’s head. “You, too, Yuri.”

“Yeah, you’re welcome,” said Yurio.

Fairyland put an odd feeling in Yuuri’s heart--a terrible quiet anxiety that buzzed through his veins like leaves scattering down the road in the wind. “How far do we need to go to find Victor?” he asked.

Yurio pointed, and Yuuri followed his gaze far, far away to an enormous palace that stood black against the mountain behind it, windows lit with burning light. “They’ll be keeping him there,” Yuri said.  
For the first time, Yuuri heard a note of fear in the boy’s voice that his youthful bravado could not conceal. “Well,” said Yuuri, “all we can do is...go, I suppose.”  
“Forward, or back?” Yurio hissed.  
“Forward!” Yuuri said, startled by the question. He dressed his face in determination. “Of course.” The rose kept on its steady pulse. He walked toward the palace, Makkachin and Yurio close behind.

Yuuri followed the bank of the river awhile, but when it began to rise and turn to steeper and steeper rocks, he turned, and headed into the wood. They had not gotten twenty paces past the edge of the trees when Yuuri’s foot plunged through the leafy floor and he tripped, barely catching himself with his hands as he fell. A squawk and a thud behind him suggested Yurio had somehow done the same. Frowning, Yuuri pushed himself to his feet, only to be splattered the next instant by a torrent of some foul-smelling slime that rained down onto the path. Yuuri threw up a shield spell above them, but the damage had already been done. He and Yurio were both completely drenched in the stuff, and when Yuuri tried to go to Yurio, he found his feet struggling to move through it as the slime congealed around him. He glanced over at Yurio and saw the boy stretching the stuff away from his coat with a look of disgust and fascination.

“Why the hell don’t you look where you’re going?” Yurio demanded.

Yuuri rolled his eyes. “I could ask you the same. Look, Makkachin’s the only one of us who knows what he’s doing.”

Indeed, Makkachin had survived the incident unscathed, having wandered off the path to go sniffing after something.

“Ooh, Otabek!” They heard a voice cry out of the darkness ahead. “Come look what we’ve caught!”

Two torches flared into light in front of them, and carrying them were two fairies--one a red-headed girl, the other a dark-haired boy. The boy eyed them. “They don’t look too dangerous,” he said.

“Hey!” said Yurio, evidently offended at being assessed as “not too dangerous.”

“Not too dangerous to us,” the strange boy amended, and held out his hand to Yurio. “I’m sure you must be dangerous to someone, or else you would not be stealing through these woods by cover of night.”

The girl held out her hand to Yuuri. He pulled his hand from his side with great difficulty, the slime stretching with him, but when the girl took his hand and pulled him towards her, he left the slime behind.

Accepting the benefits of the choice, Yurio finally put his hand in the other boy’s, and was pulled out, too.

“Thanks,” Yurio muttered.

The boy nodded, then strode back to the girl’s side.

“He’s a fairy,” said the girl, pointing at Yurio. “You’re not,” she said, poking Yuuri in the chest.

“Uh--” Yuuri said.

“Are you two traveling together?” the boy asked Yurio. “Did you bring this human here?”

“So what if I did,” said Yurio.

The boy shrugged. “We don’t care that he’s here. But a human never comes to Fairyland without purpose, be it willing or unwilling.”

“You’re not going to...eat my heart or anything?” Yuuri asked. “Ow!” he added--Yurio had kicked his shin.

The girl laughed. “No, of course not!”

Yuuri glanced toward Yurio. “Well,” he said. “Some people have told me fairies would eat the heart of any human they found here.”

“Oh, some of them would, most definitely,” said the girl. “There are fairies that eat human hearts and there are fairies that don’t eat human hearts and we are the second kind. Lucky for you!”

“Oh, well, good. Thank you.”

“If you’re good fairies,” asked Yurio with narrowed eyes, “what was all that muck and junk about?” He gestured at the mysterious spot in the trees from whence the sticky goo had dropped upon them.

“Oh, we just like to know who’s passing by,” said the girl.

“And whether they should be allowed further,” the boy added. “What is your business here?”

“It’s--my husband,” Yuuri said. He had never said those words out loud in reference to Victor anywhere outside their tent. “Some fairies stole him. The, uh--the heart-eating kind, I think…”

“Oh, poor thing,” said the girl. “Otabek, let’s help them, don’t you think?”

“Why not?,” said the boy. “I think they’re owed a favor.”

“Really?” asked Yurio, squinting at him as if searching for a flaw.

The fairy just nodded.

Yuuri straightened his shoulders. “I would be very grateful for your help. I am Prince Yuuri of Hasetsu, and this is Lord Yuri of Nikiforova. And, ah, Makkachin," he added, gesturing at the dog. "Also of Nikiforova.”

Otabek gave a little bow, and the girl curtsied. “Mila,” she said simply, extending a hand to shake Yuuri’s. “And Otabek.”

 

The two fairies led them off the path and deeper into the woods, until they reached a clearing in which sat a small cottage. The stones in its walls glimmered with an iridescent sheen, and the smoke that curled out of the chimney was blue. Mila pushed open the door and beckoned them inside, where they were greeted by the smell of something excellent cooking in the fireplace. “Home, sweet home!” Mila sang out.

Yurio scowled.

“It’s very nice,” Yuuri said hurriedly, feeling the need to make up for his companion’s lack of manners. “Thank you for your help.”

“You just sit yourselves down and we’ll even feed you,” said Mila. “Otabek! Would you mind setting the table for our guests?”

Otabek nodded, and swept his hand over the wooden table, conjuring forth bowls, silverware, and goblets already filled with wine.

Yuuri and Yurio took their seats, and Yuuri eyed the wine with caution. “Should I--? I probably shouldn’t actually drink this, right?” he whispered to Yurio. “Isn’t that a rule here? Don’t eat or drink anything the fairies give you?”

“It’s true,” said Otabek, sitting down across from them.

“Oh--uh--” said Yuuri.

“When a human takes our food or drink, they belong to us. The price of our hospitality. The dog's fine, though.”

Yuuri glanced down to see Makkachin sloppily lapping up his own bowl of soup.

“You don’t have to eat it,” Mila said as she dropped the pot directly in the middle of the table. In an instant, their bowls were filled with wide noodles swimming in a rich and creamy broth. “--but it’s that, or go hungry, I’m afraid.”

“We’ll give our word not to abuse our power,” said Otabek.

“Unless you betray us, of course!” Mila added. “Then, no promises.” She laughed, ruffling her hands through both Yu(u)ris’ hair, then went to her own seat and began devouring noodles at once.

Yurio looked disgusted, and grumbled wordlessly into his noodles. He still ate them.

Yuuri stared at his own bowl. He was desperately hungry, and the food smelled hot and savoury. It was good enough to impress Yurio, for certain, given the rate at which he slurped up his portion. But it seemed a terrible risk, signing away his life just for some supper. He coughed, and excused himself, and fished Victor’s fairy pouch out of his sack. When he returned to the table, he waved the soup out of his bowl, and refilled it with the pouch’s gift for the evening--a great quantity of fried mushrooms.

"Or, you could do that," said Mila, raising her eyebrows.

Yurio glanced over and snorted. “Yakov’s been looking for that.”

Mila poked at the pouch. “Bit rude isn’t it, eating some other fairy food when I made you perfectly good, wholesome soup? But if you prefer to be paranoid, it’s your stomach, I guess.”

Yuuri flushed a bit, but he still ate the mushrooms.

“What’s that, then?” Mila asked, pointing at the rose in his lapel.

Yuuri swallowed, and looked back up at her. “My husband gave it to me before he was taken,” he said carefully. “It’s--it’s how I know he’s still alive.”

All three fairies paused to look upon the flower with interest. Their gaze made Yuuri uncomfortable.

“Hm,” said Otabek.

“That’s some magic,” Mila remarked. “I can’t imagine how a wizard great enough to make a thing like that got abducted in the first place.”

“His stepfather sold his heart,” Yuuri said miserably.

“Oh, dear,” said Mila. “That’s going to make your task incredibly difficult. It might be impossible.”

“It isn’t. It’s not impossible. I married him a year ago this Thursday. At midnight Friday, his heart will be mine instead. Love is stronger even than fairy magic--that’s what Victor said. And I love him. I love him so, so much…” Yuuri could not help but burst into tears.

Mila rose from her chair and came around to pat him gently on the back. Otabek produced a handkerchief, and handed it across the table to him. “Of course, you’re right. It isn’t impossible,” Mila said. When she returned to her side of the table, and Yuuri had dabbed his tears away, he could see that her concern looked quite genuine. Even stoic Otabek had softened his features into something like pity.

“Eat your supper, Prince Yuuri,” Otabek said. “We’re going to help you.”

Yuuri sighed and went back to his mushrooms.

“Funny, you know,” Otabek said. “That might explain the balls. If they knew.”

“What balls?” demanded Yurio.

“Ohh,” said Mila, eyes widening. “Of course. They need him to fall for someone else, so that Yuuri’s love cannot take him away.”

“The Dark Court, those that occupy that palace you saw against the mountain--they’ve been throwing fantastic balls, sometimes twice a week, for weeks now,” Otabek explained. “Not that they aren’t wanton hedonists to begin with, but it is odd.”

“They must be for your husband,” said Mila. “They must be dressing him in their finest clothes and throwing him into the arms of all the most beautiful folk of their court, hoping that he will learn to forget you.”

“He couldn’t forget me!” Yuuri said fiercely. “When is the next ball?”

Mila and Otabek exchanged a glance.

“Tomorrow,” Otabek said.

Yuuri slammed his fist against the table, rattling all their dishes. Makkachin barked. “I have to go,” Yuuri said.

“Are you mad?” said Yurio. “You can’t just waltz into the middle of the Dark Court--everyone here can tell you’re a human.”

“What else can I do?” said Yuuri.

“Not much, I fear,” said Mila. “You’ll need a glamour. Otabek--?”

Otabek nodded. “Between the two of us, I think we could make him something serviceable.”

“We’ll give you a little charm that will make everyone think they’re looking at a fairy when they see you,” Mila explained. “But it may not hold for long--not among fairies that powerful. You’re going to have to be very, very careful.”

“Very,” Otabek agreed.

“What is your plan?” Yurio demanded. “You can’t just walk in there and grab him and expect to get out alive.”

Yuuri frowned. “I don’t have to grab him. If--if they’re not hurting him. I just need to talk to him so he knows I’ve come for him. I need to make sure he still loves me, and then, then we just need to wait for Saturday, and he’ll be free--he can walk out all on his own.”

Yurio slouched back in his chair. “You don’t even know if Victor is right about this whole marriage theory. What do you plan to do if he doesn’t walk out of there on Saturday?”

Yuuri shrugged. “Then I try something else.”

“Like what?”

“Victor taught me all kinds of magic,” Yuuri said. “He told me once--he thought I would need it one day. I guess that day is here.”

“I think your plan will work,” said Otabek. He looked up at Yurio. “Don’t underestimate love magic. It is stronger than ours.” Otabek stood, and with a wave of his hand, made the dishes vanish just as they had appeared.

Yurio said nothing, though he turned a bit pink and dropped his gaze as he and Yuuri also rose from the table.

“You two should get some rest; I’m sure you’ve had a long day,” said Mila. “There are two very comfortable couches over there by the fire.”

She gestured in that direction, and just as she said, there were two couches, where once, Yuuri was certain, there had only been two chairs. It would not do to dwell on it, he decided. He thanked Mila, and went straight away to lie down on a plush, green couch. Makkachin hopped up beside him and curled up on his feet.

Yurio settled onto the other with much more caution, sitting down slowly as if waiting for some small monster to erupt from the cushions and bite him. Remaining unscathed, he finally settled back against an armrest. Otabek and Mila bade them good night, and the fire sank into the grate, leaving the room lit only by the dim light of burning coals. Yurio looked a bit pleased when Mila and Otabek retired to separate rooms. Yuuri smiled to himself, and pretended not to notice.

 

Yuuri was sure he would never really sleep, no matter how tired, knowing how close he was to finally getting Victor back. It was with great surprise, then, that he awoke the following morning feeling quite refreshed. The moment that he and Makkachin rose from the couch, it shrank back into a chair behind them.

In the kitchen, Mila was already up and sipping at a steaming mug of tea. “Breakfast?” she asked, and without waiting for his answer, made a lazy sort of gesture that resulted in a plate of eggs and bacon clattering down to the table. A piece of toast followed, also appearing a bit too high in the air, and Yuuri had to catch it before it bounced off the table. “Ugh, sorry,” she said. “It’s early. Are you even going to eat that?”

Yuuri looked at the toast, and decided, at last, to trust his instinct that Mila and Otabek were genuine in their help and hospitality. Cautiously, he took a bite.

“Oh, look at that,” said Mila. She waved again, and a bowl of eggs and bacon clattered to the floor for Makkachin as well.

Yuuri nodded, and, beginning to feel that the fairies were perhaps not sufficiently impressed with his own magic, conjured up his own mug, and set it gently on the table.

Mila gestured, and it filled with tea.

“Thank you,” said Yuuri. He took another bite of his toast, then asked, “Where is Otabek?”

“Information,” Mila replied.

Seeing that she was truly not in the mood for an effort this morning, Yuuri resolved to finish his breakfast and let Mila finish her tea before he asked any more questions. At last, spotting her tip the last drop across her lips, Yuuri asked, “So, ah, you and Otabek? What is the, um. Situation there.”

Mila leaned back in her chair and stretched. “Otabek plays guitar when the spirit takes him. Sometimes I dance for accompaniment. We’ve known each other for years, and both found we preferred living out here in the wood to the bustle of a city or palace, though of course we do travel a bit when we feel like it.”

“So you two are--?”

“Oh!” Mila laughed. “You mean are we together? No, no, no, no. We’re just friends, joined together for the time by circumstance. He’s all yours if you want him,” she added, and Yuuri was beginning to protest that was not why he’d asked, when he realized she was looking over his shoulder, and had directed that last comment at Yurio.

“I don’t want either of you,” he grumbled, sitting down at the table in such a way that he made the maximum distance between Mila and himself.

Mila managed to produce Yurio breakfast with a bit more grace than Yuuri’s, and they all sat in thoughtful silence, but for the sound of Yurio’s sullen chewing.

Otabek returned some hours later, and Mila’s vague “information” proved to be as much knowledge of the ball as he could gather without arousing too much suspicion. Which was, regrettably, not very much. But he had a time, and a reasonably confident belief that the theme of the night was meant to be gold, and that Yuuri should dress accordingly.

Yuuri transfigured his traveling garments into cloth-of-gold, shaping them into a more formal garment, so gaudy that he feared it stretched the limits of taste. “Too much?” he asked the others, wincing.

Mila shook her head and wiggled her fingers in his direction. The trim of his doublet erupted with gold beads that twinkled in the sunlight, and shimmering gold wove across the entire material in the shape of leaves and flowers. As an afterthought, Mila wiggled her fingers again, and his shoes sprouted shining gold ribbons in place of their more conventional laces. “There,” she said.

Otabek nodded. “That should do it.”

Yurio snickered. “You look ridiculous,” he said.

“I feel it,” said Yuuri, who could hardly be offended under the circumstances. “Are you sure this is all necessary?”

“Trust us,” said Otabek. “Next to the Dark Court, you’ll look modest.”

“What about the glamour?” Yurio asked, folding his arms.

Otabek and Mila held up their hands before Yuuri, and murmured indistinct chants beneath their breath. This went on for several minutes while Yuuri shifted uncomfortably in his ridiculous get-up, and exchanged skeptical glances with Yurio. Then the two fairies lowered their hands, and Yurio gave a little shout. “Ohh,” he said, staring in fascination. “That’s weird.”

“What?” asked Yuuri. He looked down at his own arms, turning them over. Makkachin came close and sniffed all up and down his legs.

“Do you know a spell to reveal magic?” Mila asked.

Yuuri nodded, calling the change to his eyes, and when he looked down next, he could see it--still barely perceptible, but there--a thin, silvery vapor covered his whole body.

“You might not see anything different, since humans can’t tell fairies from their own kind without using tricks--” Mila said.

Yurio absently rubbed his right ear.

“--but to fairies, you look like one of us now.”

“Huh,” Yuuri said. “Well, thank you. Thank you so much.”

“Don’t thank us yet,” said Otabek. “We can change how you look, but we can’t disguise your voice. It still sounds human, and there’s nothing we can do about that.”

“You can’t speak a word in there, okay?” said Mila. “They’ll hear it in an instant, and you’ll be dead in the next.”

Fear clenched Yuuri’s stomach as he considered exactly what dangers he was about to walk into. He forced himself to think. “Alright. This is fine. It doesn’t matter that I can’t talk. Victor will see me, and that’s all I need. He will be able to see me, right?”

Otabek nodded.

“Okay,” said Yuuri. “I can do this. I can do this. I can do this…,” he trailed off, still mouthing the words beneath his breath as he paced around the cottage. The sun was setting, and he knew it was time to go. “Okay,” he said again. He squared his shoulders. “I guess I’m--I’m off then.” He wasn’t comforted by the fact that all three fairies looked as though they didn’t quite believe they would see him in one piece again.

“Just don’t talk,” said Otabek.

“Seriously,” said Mila, looking grim enough to match her friend for once. “Not even a whisper. Nothing.”

Yuuri covered his mouth in answer. Then he took a deep breath, turned, and left, following the path to the palace that Otabek had drilled into his head earlier that afternoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter was about 0% Victor and 100% weird fairy shenanigans, but he'll be back soon! (But look! Makkachin! Alive and well!)
> 
> In the meantime, @Littorella made some [absolutely beautiful fanart](https://littorella.tumblr.com/post/181140062150/whitebear) of dashing Prince Yuuri and a very fluffy and huggable Vitya and I'm real verklempt about it and you should go look at it!
> 
> Also, thank you SO much to everyone who's kudo'd and commented and bookmarked and rec'd this fic along the way! I hope the last chapter is everything you want! <3


	9. Chapter 9

Yuuri sweated as he waited in the queue to enter the ball, braced for someone to point at him and yell “human!” But it never came. The doorman waved him through without a second glance, and Yuuri stepped into an entirely gold ballroom.

The floors were gold, the walls were gold, gold lamps hung in the hair, servants in cloth-of-gold suits slid between the guests holding gold trays laden with filigreed glasses of golden wine. Not even in the Nikiforovan court had Yuuri ever seen such opulence. Of course, it was all fairy-stuff. For all he knew, the palace was made of mud.

Yuuri tore his eyes from the spectacle and crossed the room back and forth in search of Victor. Only when Yuuri had despaired of finding him, a herald sounded a bright horn and the fairy court came forth, decked head to toe in gold, and in the rear, so beautiful that all looked tarnished and dull beside him, stood Victor. Yuuri knew him at once, though he looked altogether different. They had cut his hair, and it was now shorter than Yuuri’s. A pleasant smile replaced the broken grief Yuuri had last seen on the prince’s face.

Yuuri waited breathless for Victor’s gaze to fall on him as he scanned the ballroom, but when Victor at last glanced in his direction, he did not pause or give any sign of recognition. The fairy queen was saying something, and pulled Victor forward to stand beside her, where he waved and nodded, but Yuuri did not hear the words. His mouth went dry with the fear that Otabek’s glamour had worked too well--Victor could not recognize him, Victor thought he was a fairy, too. How was he ever going to get Victor to go with him if he couldn’t recognize him, and Yuuri couldn’t speak to explain himself?

The queen had finished speaking, and Victor was at once swarmed by fairies laughing and chattering away at him. He danced with them, one by one, spinning around the room while Yuuri tried in vain to keep up, to catch his eye, but there was nothing. Victor made no sign of recognition, never once attempted to seek Yuuri for a dance instead. The evening passed away, and as the fairy queen announced the last dance was about to begin, Yuuri grabbed a flute of golden wine from a nearby golden servant, and downed it in one go.

Determined, Yuuri pushed his way through the crowd, until at last he got to Victor’s side. Victor was chatting with the fairy woman who was his latest dance partner, and did not look at him. Yuuri reached out and tapped Victor on the arm. Victor turned and gave him a smile and a slight bow.

“Oh, hello!” he said. “How are you?”

Yuuri stared. He would not have known what to say, even if he could speak.

Victor frowned a little as the music began. “Are you alright?”

Yuuri shook his head.

“I’m sorry--I’m only a guest here, I’m afraid I can’t help you. I’m Victor, by the way, and you are--?”

Tears welled up in Yuuri’s eyes.

Worry creased Victor’s face, but the fairy woman was now tugging at his other arm. “I’m so sorry,” he said, “but I really must go. I hope you find help!” And then he was off, and dancing, and Yuuri was all alone.

They had done something to him. They had stolen his memories. Victor couldn’t remember him. Yuuri stumbled across the room, buffeted by dancing couples who glared at him with their pale, pointed faces. Everything was so bright. The swish of skirts and coats seemed louder even than the music beating against Yuuri’s ears as he tried to just get to the door.

Fairy wine must be more potent than he had expected, because as soon as he reached the edge of the dancers, the room dipped and spun a bit, and Yuuri found himself staggering sideways against a table. Instead of its hard edges, he found himself caught by strong hands. The hands righted him, and Yuuri looked up into Victor’s eyes.

Victor frowned. “Do I know you? I feel like I know you.”

Yuuri nodded, vigorously.

“I--” the bells began to toll midnight. “That’s the end,” Victor said. “I must go. Will you--will you be at tomorrow’s ball as well?”

Yuuri nodded again, and Victor’s frown turned into a smile. For a moment, between the striking of the bells, there was a perfect silence, and all Yuuri could see was Victor, his Victor, forever. Then it passed.

“Good,” Victor said. He spun on his heel and went off back into the recesses of the palace with the rest of the court.

 

“Where’s Victor?” Yuri demanded as soon as the door swung open.

“Awrrr?” Makkachin whined, evidently wondering the same.

“Hehnsflfnmblurr,” Yuuri said, grabbing a pillow as he sat down and hiding his face in it.

“What the hell happened?” Yuri said, yelling this time.

“Glurreblurrgfrrm,” said Yuuri.

“Are you _drunk?_ ”

“Oh no, you poor idiot,” said Mila, coming over and sitting beside him on what had once been a chair, but now, once again, was a couch. “You were so afraid to eat our soup last night, and now you go and drink the wine of the Dark Court?”

Otabek shook his head. “He’s lucky he had the glamour. They never knew they caught someone.”

“Let’s hope it was only wine, and it will pass out of him soon enough. Was it only wine, Prince Yuuri?” Mila asked.

Yuuri nodded.

“Good. Now you really must tell us what happened to make you do something so stupid.”

“I don’t know,” Yuuri said as he came up for air. “They did something to him. He can’t--he can’t remember me. I don’t know if he can remember anything.”

“Well just make him remember, then!” said Yuri.

“Goodness, yes, wouldn’t that be a great plan _if I could talk_ ,” he said, glaring at Otabek and Mila.

Otabek shrugged, stoic as ever. “I don’t make the rules,” he said.

“There’s nothing you can do? Nothing? What good is the help of two ancient immortal magical beings if you can’t do something as simple as disguise my voice?”

Mila laughed and Otabek gave him an odd look. “We aren’t born old, you know,” said Mila.

Otabek shrugged. “I was born eighteen years ago.”

“WHAT.”

“I’m nineteen,” Mila chimed in.

Yuuri buried his face in his hands. “Oh no,” he said, as the pain of a hangover slammed into his skull. “I’m surrounded by children.”

 

Yuuri passed out soon afterward, and when he awoke the following afternoon, he was somewhat returned to his senses. Victor had said, at the end, that he felt like he knew Yuuri. Perhaps if only Yuuri could spend more time with him, his memories might begin to return.

The theme of the night was aquatic, and Yuuri set out in a midnight-blue coat that shone with silver fish scales when the light caught it. The ballroom was eerie, all the light blue-green so that it felt as if they were underwater, peering through the depths. Yuuri feared the dim light would make it hard for him and Victor to find each other, but he did catch Victor’s eye that night, when the queen presented him, and Victor smiled a little. He was pulled into the first dance by a fairy at once, but at the end, he left his partner, and threaded the sea of fish-fairies to Yuuri.

“It is you, isn’t it?” Victor asked him. “The lost fellow from last night?”

Yuuri inclined his head.

“Tell me, do we really know each other from somewhere else? You seem so familiar, but I can’t imagine where I could have met you.”

Yuuri nodded again, staring into Victor’s eyes and willing him to remember, to look back at him with recognition.

“I don’t remember,” Victor whispered, and he looked almost distraught over it. “I’m sorry, I--I don’t remember…”

Yuuri felt himself tearing up, but then shook himself. He couldn’t lose focus now. He held out his arms in invitation.

“You want to dance with me?” Victor asked.

Yuuri nodded, and took Victor’s hand.

“Well, whoever you are, I can hardly refuse such a handsome partner.” Victor stepped closer, settling into Yuuri’s arms as the music began. “Do you like to dance?”

Yuuri smiled and nodded.

Victor laughed. “I can see,” he said, “You’re quite good at it.”

Yuuri smiled wider, and nodded his thanks.

“Have you always been mute?”

Yuuri shook his head.

“Is this some kind of curse? Do you need a handsome prince to help you break it? Because I’m happy to offer my services.” He winked.

Yuuri shook his head again, and laughed, not believing that Victor had somehow managed to use the same flirtation on him in two completely different contexts. Unencumbered by the self-consciousness of his curse, this Victor was much more forward.

Victor smiled brightly. “Oh, I’m glad you can laugh, at least. You have a beautiful laugh, has anyone ever told you that?”

Yuuri sighed, smiled, nodded.

Victor frowned again. “Not cursed, not born mute--was it an injury?”

Yuuri shook his head.

“Voluntary, then?” Victor asked, looking skeptical.

Yuuri glanced around at the whirling court, then looked back at Victor. He pressed his lips together tightly, and gave him the tiniest shake of his head, suddenly gripping Victor tighter.

“Oh,” said Victor, evidently turning the possibilities over in his head, and presumably coming to something like the right conclusion. “I see. Never fear--I won’t tell anyone why my partner is so shy.” He smiled a little again, and squeezed back on Yuuri’s hand.

Yuuri sighed a breath of relief--one hurdle crossed. The song ended, and Victor stepped back from him, only to give Yuuri a low bow and ask for the next dance himself. As he reeled Yuuri back in close, Yuuri let himself let go of his fear and apprehension, let himself fall into the dance with Victor as easily as they had when they danced in the tent. Whatever might happen next, at least in this moment, he was dancing with his husband again, and it was easy, natural, and joyous.

Yuuri thought of how he had kissed Victor for the first time (properly, on his human mouth) after their very first dance, and wondered if Victor might let him do it again. Victor had demanded to know if Yuuri really meant to kiss him, or if it was just because no one else was around. His concern made all the more sense now that Yuuri knew how the fate of Victor’s heart hung on that question. Victor couldn’t just be married--he had to be married to someone who loved him. Yuuri looked into Victor’s eyes, and willed him to understand.

Victor was smiling at him, so softly, but Yuuri knew it was still without true recognition. As they entered the final movement of the song, his expression changed suddenly to something calculating and serious. “I don’t know what is happening to me or to you, but I feel certain I need you, somehow. But I cannot leave this palace, and you cannot come in. I need--I need time. I need time to remember you. Don’t I?”

Yuuri nodded quickly.

“Then they must hold another ball so I can see you again.” Victor gripped Yuuri’s shoulder. “I cannot dance with you again--they will think I have chosen you, and I don’t want them to inspect you too closely. I need them to think I am still undecided so they will be forced to open the palace again this week. Do you understand?”

Yuuri nodded. He smoothed his hands down Victor’s sides, and Victor closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Yuuri took his hand, and kissed the finger where his ring might have sat if he could wear it.

“Who are you,” Victor murmured.

Yuuri squeezed his hand and offered a sad smile.

Victor shook his head. “Tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow, I will know. I promise.”

Yuuri let him go, and Victor was swept off again by a fairy who looked as though they were wearing sealskin. Afraid to compromise Victor any further, and supposing he had done all he could do, he melted away out of the room, and walked back to the cottage. When he crossed back over the river, he stooped, and picked up a stone from its bank. He smoothed his thumb across it, and thought about Victor’s lesson on the memory of objects. He picked up one, two, four more rocks, and slipped them into his pocket.

 

“Well?” asked Yurio when he walked in.

Yuuri sat down with a sigh. “One more day,” he said. “I just need one more day, and this will all be over.” He pulled Victor’s rose from his satchel, turning it in his fingers. The slow, steady beat of the blankness the fairies cast upon him had gone. It beat faster now, an echo of the anxiety that raced in Yuuri’s own heart. He took the river stones from his pocket one by one, and pressed each one between his hands. He asked it to remember the power of the river that shaped it, to gather all the years-long force of it in its memory, and wait. Then Yuuri pulled out Victor’s old fairy pouch, forgotten until that moment, and placed the stones inside. They added nothing to the bag’s weight or dimension--it still looked like a very plain, brown leather pouch. He smoothed it out over his knee, then placed it carefully back in his satchel.

 

The third ball was flowers. Yuuri wore a coat of purple, embroidered with blue roses. Every surface in the ballroom was covered in flowers--even the floor was a carpet of flowers that crushed beneath his feet, then sprang back as soon as he stepped forward. It smelled intoxicating, but not in a pleasant way. There was a too-sweet sickliness to them that did nothing to calm the dread Yuuri felt as he waited for Victor one last time--one last chance to save him.

Victor wore blue roses, too, on white. “We match,” he said softly, brushing his fingers across the flower stitched over Yuuri’s heart once they found each other at the edge of the ballroom. Yuuri took his hand, and kissed his finger again. As they began to dance, Yuuri looked at Victor with a question in his eye.

Victor shook his head sadly. “I don’t know. I’m so sorry, darling--I don’t know.”

Yuuri sighed, and looked away.

“I have never seen you before,” Victor said. “I have no memory of you. So why is it that when I look at you I feel as though I’ve found a missing piece of my heart?”

Yuuri couldn’t help it. Tears spilled from his eyes and ran down his face. He could no longer keep the rhythm of the dance and just stood there, clutching Vitya.

“What is happening?” Vitya asked, and when Yuuri looked up he was crying too. “Why am I crying? Who are you?”

Yuuri reached up and curled his palms around Victor’s jaw, brushing the tears away with his thumbs. He held Victor’s bewildered gaze for a long moment, then rose up to kiss him.

The moment their lips touched, Yuuri knew something had changed. Victor clasped him tight and kissed him back desperately. When they parted, he was smiling, wide and beautiful as Yuuri had never been able to see him. “ _Yuuri_ ,” Vitya said.

In an instant, the ballroom went silent. A hundred bodies turned to face them.

Victor’s smile vanished. “Oh, no.”

Yuuri smiled instead, his hands still cradling Vitya’s face. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I can handle this.” From a pocket in his coat, he pulled out the fairy pouch, and from the pouch he pulled a handful of stones he had gathered in preparation for this moment. Without a moment’s hesitation he threw them to the ground before him, casting a shield the instant they left his fingertips, and with a loud crack the entire host of fairies were blown back as if by a violent wind, some of them even out through the doors of the ballroom. “Run,” he told Victor, and dragged him along by the hand. Victor followed, and they forced their way out the door.

Though they had the advantages of surprise and the river stone magic, the Dark Court was soon at their heels. At the edge of the forest, the two of them were forced to turn and face their pursuers. Yuuri and Victor both threw up shields just in time to hold off the grasping hands of the nearest fairies.

“Yuuri,” Victor said desperately, “they are too powerful. We cannot hold them off forever.”

“We don’t need forever,” Yuuri said. “We only need another minute.”

“Another minute?”

Yuuri smiled at him. “Don’t you know what day it is? I can’t believe you forgot our anniversary.”

Victor turned, his mouth open in astonishment, and then the clock began to chime. Victor and Yuuri threw themselves into holding the barrier with renewed strength, and at the twelfth toll, Victor suddenly drew in a deep, gasping breath, as if there had been something squeezing his neck until that moment.

There was a silence, and then the air filled with the terrible sound of the fairies shrieking. Yuuri and Victor flinched, but then realized that those nearest them were pounding at the air, unable to come any closer.

“Your heart, Vitya,” Yuuri said, laying his hand over Victor’s breast.

Victor covered Yuuri’s hand with his own. “It has always been yours,” he said.

The fairies had begun fading back into the night, though every now and then a shriek still cut through the darkness.

Yuuri pulled the chain that held Victor’s ring from beneath his collar, and took off the ring. He then knelt on one knee, and said, “Prince Victor, may I have your hand in marriage, not for a year but for a lifetime?”

Victor’s eyes shone as he pulled Yuuri to his feet and kissed his yes into Yuuri’s mouth. Yuuri took Victor’s hand in his, holding it gently, and slid the ring onto his finger. Victor’s fingers trembled, and then he lifted Yuuri’s hand to his and kissed it, just above Yuuri’s own ring. “My handsome prince,” he murmured. “You saved me.”

A last, lone fairy cry came down from the hills.

“Let’s get out of here, shall we?” said Yuuri.

Victor squeezed his hand, and together they walked through the night until they reached Mila and Otabek’s cottage.

 

When Yuuri opened the door this time, neither he nor Yurio had a chance to get a word in before Makkachin bolted out in a brown streak and launched himself at Victor.

“Makkachin! Makkachin!” Victor cried, as the poodle knocked him to the ground. “Oh, I didn’t dare hope you still lived. Yuuri, you brought my dog!”

“ _I_ brought your dog,” said Yurio. “Don’t give him all the credit.”

“Oh, Cousin Yuri!” Victor said, lifting one of Makkachin’s ears off his face to see. “I didn’t even notice you. How did you get here?”

“He came all the way to Hasetsu to help me when he found out you had been captured,” Yuuri said. “I would never have found Fairyland without him.”

Yurio _hmph_ -ed and kicked his shoe against the dirt.

As soon as Makkachin had licked his face to satisfaction, Victor bounced back to his feet and embraced his cousin. “Oh, thank you, Yuri! You’re the nicest person I’m related to.”

“We’re not even related,” Yurio grumbled, but he gave Victor a half-hearted hug, and Yuuri thought the boy’s eyes looked a bit damp.

“--And,” Yuuri added, noticing that Mila and Otabek were both watching the proceedings with a sort of perplexed fascination, “this is Mila and Otabek. They helped, too. It was, um. It was a group effort, I guess.”

Victor gave them a little bow, which they both returned.

“Will the three of you stay one more night with us?” Mila asked.

They all agreed, and when they re-entered the cottage one of the chairs had become not just a couch, but a bed. When they lay down together, Yuuri traced his fingers over Victor’s face, marveling at being able to see it at last, though the light may have been dim. “I love you,” he whispered, trying not to bother Yurio. “I should have told you so much sooner. I should have said it every day.”

Victor smiled at him and kissed his fingers. “I imagined it might be the case,” he whispered back. He stroked one finger over Yuuri’s heart, and Yuuri understood. Vitya had imagined, but had been afraid to believe until tonight, when Yuuri’s love had proven true enough to save him. “You came back for me,” he said.

“I promised,” said Yuuri, and he touched Victor’s breast in a mirror of Victor’s own gesture.

“I love you, too,” Victor said.

They curled into each other and fell asleep, exhausted by the night’s long battle, Makkachin a warm weight on their feet.

 

Yuuri and Victor were the last to rise the next morning. Mila sat at the table alone, and there was no sign of Yurio or Otabek.

“Where--?” Yuuri asked vaguely.

“Who’s to say?” Mila replied. She smirked into her teacup.

Yuuri chuckled, and helped Mila lay out breakfast for himself and Victor. Mila had many questions for Victor about what captivity in the Dark Court had been like, how many balls had there really been. Victor answered in halting sentences at first, and Yuuri laid his hand over Victor’s wrist, brushed it gently with his thumb. Victor’s skin felt cold, and Yuuri willed a little warmth into him. He felt Victor release some tension, and he began to answer Mila’s questions more freely.

When they finished breakfast, Yuuri slung his satchel over his shoulder, and took Victor’s hand. “Ready?” he asked.

“Very much so,” Victor replied. “Madame Mila, thank you for your hospitality and your help.”

Mila curtsied. “The pleasure was ours, Your Highnesses.” She pushed open the front door, making Otabek and Yurio flinch where they were standing just outside it. “Wasn’t it, Otabek?”

Otabek actually turned a little red. “Of course,” he said, and clasped his hands behind his back.

Yuuri glanced up at Victor. “Well, I guess we’ll be going, then. Yurio?”

(“Yurio?” said Victor.)

(“Don’t ask,” said Yuuri.)

Yurio folded his arms. “I’m staying,” he said.

“Sure,” said Victor. “Okay, then.”

“Make sure Georgi doesn’t do something tacky to the palace.”

“I don’t think I could stop him if I tried,” said Victor, “but I’ll see what I can do.”

 

Yuuri took Victor’s hand, and led him back through the forest, following Makkachin’s lead this time to avoid Mila and Otabek’s traps, and out across the wide moor and up the river to the stone-shadow door Yuuri had entered through. One by one they crossed, and once more in the mortal world, beheld Hasetsu, a glimmer shining beside the ocean, mere miles away. Yuuri found himself staring at Victor. Victor turned and caught his eye, and Yuuri smiled, brushing a hand down Victor’s arm. “I just realized I’ve never seen you in the sunlight.”

“No scales,” Victor said.

Yuuri laughed and hugged him. “No scales. I wouldn’t mind if you did, though.”

Victor pressed him close. “You are so good to me,” he said.

“So, where now? Are you going to go take the throne back from Georgi?”

Victor shook his head, and smile spread slowly across his face. “No, let Georgi have it. He may be a fool, but Yakov will keep him in line. I don’t want to be Tsar anyway” He looked down at Yuuri. “I’d rather be Prince Vitya, and grow roses for my husband.”

Yuuri laughed. “I would rather that, too. My family--they will be happy to have us in Hasetsu. I know my parents--they will love you as their own child, once they forgive you for putting me through so much danger.” He smiled.

“Do you promise?” Vitya asked.

Yuuri placed his hand on Vitya's arm. “I promise.”

Vitya held out his hands in front of him, and roses appeared between them and twined around each other to form a crown. He lifted it and set it on Yuuri’s head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so you all know, in the sequel I probably won't write, Yurio and Otabek travel around Fairyland falling in love but pretending not to, while searching for the human child that Yurio replaced. Eventually they find him and help him get back to the human world. That child is Minami. (Minami? Yes, Minami.) Comedy ensues.
> 
> Thank you so much for all the love you've given this story, and I hope you have a very warm and happy solstice! May your days be merry and bright and may all your racist uncles undergo a profound change of heart, amen.

**Author's Note:**

> [(As I hope was clear by the lack of archive warnings, Yuuri is not operating on 100% factual information at this time.)](https://y.yarn.co/c659cf22-aa9c-4658-b14f-26bbe4d6e92f_text_hi.gif)
> 
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> 
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> 
> On tumblr @[poodlesandsucculents](www.poodlesandsucculents.tumblr.com)!


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